


Curious Girl

by januarywren



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Guardian-Ward Relationship, HEA, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Hermione Granger-centric, Manipulative Tom Riddle, Minister for Magic Tom Riddle, Obsession, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Hermione Granger, POV Tom Riddle, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Tom Riddle, Romance, Sane Tom Riddle, Slow Burn, Squick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2020-07-31 15:58:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 40,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20117728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/januarywren/pseuds/januarywren
Summary: “Hermione.”Her name was spun sugar melting on his tongue.He remembered when her hand had found his, and she looked at up him with docile, trusting eyes. “Curious, little girl.” He'd murmured; impossibly, his finger entwining about hers. “One day, the world will fear you too.”AU | Minister Riddle won't let go of his ward, Hermione.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tomione_Forum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tomione_Forum/gifts), [Seanymphe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seanymphe/gifts).

“Hermione.” 

  
  
Her name was spun sugar melting on his tongue.

  
  
He heard the clatter of her feet; counting the steps that she took, and the ones that she didn’t, knowing how she counted and skipped every oddly numbered stair. She’d scrunched her nose when he’d asked why and flicked his cheek: “_Because they creak.” _

  
  
“_Do they?”_

  
  
Once, he’d dreamed of immortality; the world prostrating itself by his feet, and gold dripping from his hands. Now, this was his dream: having inane conversations with a little girl, something his followers had come to accept; if not believe, for once agreeing with Skeeter and the Daily Prophet (“Who **was** the Minister’s ward?”).

  
  
“_Yes, they do, especially seven and nine_.” she’d nodded primly. “_You should fix them Tom; someone could get hurt - they sound like someone’s put a tripping charm on them.” _

  
  
Little Hermione; so, _caring_ for others.

  
  
“_I don’t want _you_ to get hurt. Or anyone else,” _Hermione added, considering_. “Except Bellatrix. She can step on seven and nine.” _

  
  
His lips quirked. 

  
  
“_And eleven and thirteen_?” he’d suggested, coiling one of her curls about his finger. He smirked as her gaze dropped, and hazel eyes darkened. She was predictable; a trait he found _terribly_ precious, in her. “_Careful Hermione, someone might assume you cared for me.”_

  
  
“_But I do_.”

  
  
Her head shook, and rolling eyes met his again. “_You’re not afraid of me, are you?_” Tom murmured softly. He was filled with equal longing to hold and caress her, as he was to Crucio her. Somehow, he’d never drawn his wand against her.

  
  
His hands soothed the grooves of her shoulders instead; kneading her taut muscles.

  
  
“_Why should I be?_” her lips pursed in a terribly haughty way (terribly _Hermione_ way) and she replied matter-of-factly. “_You’re my friend_.”

  
  
His smirk faltered then, as it did now.

  
  
“Friend,” Tom scoffed. What they had between them was without need of a name; ever more than the _friendship _the Malfoys, Notts, and other pure-blooded families assumed to have with him. With_ them_, if Tom allowed it.

  
  
He didn’t.

  
  
His fingers drummed against the brocade arm of the chair. She was _his_ Hermione; with green and white ribbons streaming from her hair, and laughter spilling from her lips; a vision he was loath to share. And he was hers, as silly of a girl as she was.

  
  
The girl in question came around the corner, her cheeks rosy, and mass of curls bouncing. “Tom!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms. He supported her nimble body easily; pretending to wince as her elbow smacked his ribs. “Are you going to show me-“

  
  
“Ah, ah” he chided. “Manners.”

  
  
He trailed his finger across her wrist, before resting it against her skin. “Was someone out of bed last night?”

  
  
Her cheeks flushed brighter, as she situated in his lap. “Sorry-“ Hermione had her back against his chest and tugged his arms around her waist. She’d never been able to lie, not well. Her earnestness made him laugh; his fingers caressing her side. “I couldn’t sleep last night and wanted- wanted something to read,” she hurried, tripping over her words. “I know you don’t like me in your rooms without you- but the door was open, so I…” her hair hung across the sides of her face as she looked down. “I saw the papers on your desk and read one-“

  
  
“Just one?” he teased, both knowing her penchant for reading. If he’d allowed her to attend Hogwarts (he assumed she would have been sorted into Ravenclaw, or horrid Gryffindor), she would have lived in the library; her face continually buried in a book. As it was, she devoured the books he gave her; rarely seen without one tucked under her arm, or open and beneath her head while she slept.

  
  
“Three,” she amended. “I read your theory about wandless magic-“ she peeped back up at him; her wild curls tickling his chin. “Did you really conjure a patronus without a wand? In fourth year, Tom?”

  
  
Tom smirked.

  
  
“Mhm. A marvelously furious ape,” he drawled. “It swung from the chandeliers in the Great Hall before crashing down next to Dumbledore’s plate and stood on his back legs, beating his chest.” he chuckled. “Its roar shattered every glass in the hall.”

  
  
“Really?” her brow furrowed. “I thought the Hall would have wards against things like that. Hogwarts: A History says that- “

  
  
She stopped, feeling his chest shake.

  
  
“Oh! You git!” she chided, and he rolled his eyes; an uncharacteristic thing for him to do. Still, she sounded utterly too much like Draco, except her mouth lacked the trademark Malfoy sneer. “You didn’t summon a patronus at all, did you?”

  
  
His smile, one that showed the barest traces of teeth, widened. “Doubting me, Hermione?” he teased, a dark edge to his voice. “I did summon a patronus; a sweet, chattering mouse that wanted nothing more than to hide away in my pocket. Rather, I think, like you.”

  
  
“I like spending time with Winky too,” she argued, ignoring his sneer. She’d adored their household elves; knitting them clothing (that they staunchly refused to wear) and countless socks, when they relented and wore them. “And Draco, though he set a newt free in my hair last time- he said my curls were like the underside of a decrepit log which makes no sense. How can my hair be like that?” she chewed on her bottom lip. “Theo and Blaise too. They’re nicer than Draco but-“ 

  
  
“Oh?”

  
  
His brow rose. He hadn’t known she’d been spending time with the pure-blood boys; something that made his jaw tick. He didn’t pause to examine why.

  
  
“Would you go to them, clutching Hogwarts: A History, and ask them to read it to you, pet? “

  
  
“What? No!” her cheeks reddened; her emotions always displayed on her face. It was a pity, as she would have made a horrible Slytherin, Tom thought. They would have eaten her alive. “Tom-“

  
  
“Would you curl next to them on their bed?” he continued smoothly. “Every time a thunderstorm rages outside, and lightning cracks outside the window?” It’d taken only once for him to know her fear; noting the way her hands burrowed in his shirt, and how she kept her gaze away from the window.

  
  
Hermione huffed, blowing warm air against his collarbone. “It isn’t like that with them- you know that Tom,” she insisted. “They’re my friends, and you’re - you’re you, Tom. I like it when _you _read it to me.”

  
  
“Hm.” Tom studied her; his tone airy, looking rather like the cat that’d caught a canary. “Lucius?”

  
  
Relaxing against him, she giggled at the thought. “A muggle-born? Asking Lucius to read to them? I think he’d rather kiss a house-elf!” Tom grimaced, feeling vaguely ill at the idea of anyone kissing a house-elf - knowing that Hermione hugged Winky (and Dobby when they visited the Malfoy household) was enough.

  
  
And her ideas regarding starting _S.P.E.W._ -

  
  
He’d rather thought she was joking; after she stormed into the library and searched the shelves for a book regarding the rights of house elves, after seeing Dobby ironing his ears (a creative, if rather vulgar punishment created by Lucius) and had been outraged to find none. The next day, he’d found his office filled with buttons and posters for S.P.E.W. and found himself invited to be the first member.

  
  
An invitation, he’d bemusedly accepted.

  
  
“He would, you know, Lucius.” he murmured, resting his cheek against the top of her head. The Malfoys knew well enough that his ward (‘What a precocious girl,” Narcissa cooed, as Hermione invited her to join S.P.E.W.; an invitation she’d graciously accepted) was allowed in their precious library - the whole of their gardens where she read by the babbling fountain - and any room that she wanted, down to the depths of their dungeons where she explored hand-in-hand with Dobby, and the kitchens where the other house-elves gave her petit fours and anything else she asked for. “The Malfoys are a terribly loyal family.”

  
  
Amusement was stark in his tone; both knowing how afraid the Malfoys, and other pureblood families were of Tom. He’d made his mark during his school years; his mark burned on to the arm of many heirs. His dabble in the Dark Arts had proved fruitful; though he’d stopped his pursuit of horcruxes after the first, when he’d keenly felt something _lacking_; as if the magic he’d mastered, thought to master _him_ in turn.

  
  
What was the use of immortality if he were a slave to insanity?

  
  
No, he’d decided, horcruxes wouldn’t do at all.

  
  
He’d kept his Knights and his mark; Death Eaters prolific throughout society. They’d placed themselves where he’d suggested; in the Treasury and various, influential positions in the Ministry, allowing his voice to filter through wizarding world. Tom had quickly risen among the political ranks; becoming an influential, powerful man; one originally without official title, and sponsored by the obscenely rich Malfoys. Now, as the Minister for Magic, he was undeniably and ghastly important.

Twisting in his hold, Hermione tapped his nose. “They’re loyal to you Tom, but you’re loyal to me.”

  
  
“Am I?” his brow rose.

  
  
“Yes,” she nodded, her curls springing. “I think I may be the only one you’re loyal to,” She thought, her brow furrowing. Her earnestness made him smile; certain she would have been sorted into Gryffindor. “Just as you know I’m loyal to you, more than any other.”

  
  
“Why is that?” Tom asked, resting his hand against the small of her back.

  
  
“Besides you adopting me as your ward, despite being muggle-born?” Hermione replied, “Though I cast better charms than Draco or Blaise can, I don’t know why you adopted me; I would have aged out eventually. I’m thankful for that, and your library; I couldn’t dislike you with the library you have.” she teased, fluttering her eyelashes. He chuckled, knowing she was imitating Bellatrix; one of his followers he held at a chilly arm’s length. “You’ve taught me more than anyone could and listen when I recite from A Hogwarts’s History. You’re intelligent, Tom.” she tapped his nose. “You listen, and you’re well - you’re you, Tom. I like you.”

  
  
“So eloquent,” he laughed, ignoring the warmth in his chest. It was the same as when he’d met her; on one of his necessary tours to an orphanage similar to the one he’d grown up in, before his invitation to Hogwarts came. His life had changed as the heir of Slytherin; his importance established. It’d lasted through post-graduation, where he’d spread his influence over the Ministry until he held Kingsley’s ear. Still, Kingsley had faltered on the latest bill; one the old families wanted pushed through, and Tom had toyed with the idea of opposing him publicly; beginning with cultivating his own image of good will. He was the boy from an orphanage turned powerful heir; prompting him to tour the sole orphanage of the wizarding world; one that housed half-bloods and muggle born. And toured the ammonia-soaked facility he had; walking past children in their beds, until magic had tangled around his; tiny, lapping flames embracing the roaring flames of his magic. He’d jerked; shocked at the feeling.

  
  
_Nothing_ penetrated the shields around him.

  
  
But she had.

  
  
Hermione, his curious, sweet girl.

  
  
She was a toddler; one left in her crib and ignored by the others. He’d stalked to her crib and looked down at her sleeping form; before her eyes had opened, and honeyed irises had met his. He couldn’t remember the last time someone else had looked him in the eyes; not without fear, or reservation. She was a child, a simple child yet - She was brimming with magic; power crackling about her, and him as he reached down to stroke her cheek.

  
  
She’d raised her hand, her slim fingers curling about his wrist.

  
  
Warmth crept beneath his skin; trickling into his veins the feeling the same as when he’d first tried fire whiskey (stolen from his Uncle’s locked cabinet). It was warmth that made him shiver, and his heart beat faster. It was warmth that welcomed him; warmth that urged him closer to the crib, until he leaned his face down towards hers; and she laughed in wonder.

  
  
As if she wanted him near.

  
  
_why?_

  
  
“Curious, little girl.” Tom murmured; impossibly, his finger entwining about hers. “One day, the world will fear you too.”

  
  
He’d taken her as his own ward; choosing to raise her himself. It was Tom who taught Hermione her first words (‘T-Tom’ she’d babbled. ‘Tom!’) and watched her toddle toward him, before grabbing ahold of his offered hand. He was the first one she saw as he took her from her bed (instead of having her locked away in an undersized crib), cleaning and dressing her before feeding her by hand, and the last one she saw as he tucked her into bed, crooning to her in parseltongue, while she made noises back at him. 

  
  
He’d waved the house elves away after one had made her burst into tears (she’d never seen one before; her eyes widening, before she’d whimpered as it reached for her); and warded her room from them for weeks, before they’d begged him for forgiveness. He’d been keen to cast the Crucio before Hermione had wobbled into the room, hearing the sounds; and babbled at the elf, before plopping on the ground. The elf had played patty cake with her, and Tom -

  
  
He hadn’t cast Crucio after all.

  
  
Hermione had lived knowing only him, her hand searching for his alone, her lips crooking, and pink tongue exposed as she laughed at things he said, that only she knew he meant as jokes. She was utterly unafraid of him; his followers marveling at the sight of her teasing him during dinner and interrupting him with facts he’d gotten wrong. He never raised a hand toward her; merely inclining his head, and a smile tugging at his lips as he listened, before commenting on what she’d said, or wrapped his arm about her waist and pulled her against his side.

  
  
No one knew him as she did, and no one would. He kept the society women at arm’s length, the same as Bellatrix, despite their offers to ‘mother’ Hermione while clinging to his arm. He had no interest in others, the only nightly company he had was when Hermione slipped into his bed; her cheeks damp with tears. She had nightmares; simple legilimency showing him impossible dreams of him dying and leaving her behind.

  
  
‘_We’ll live forever_,’ he whispered. ‘_Together, forever_.’

  
  
‘_Together_,’ she echoed, tucking his hand against her chest; where he felt her pulse beat beneath his palm. 

  
  
As she came of age, he would share the entirety of his world with her. Sweet, fiery Hermione would find that they were entangled; their magic weaved into one so thoroughly it couldn’t be undone.

  
  
For now, he enjoyed her youth, and her innocence. She raised her hand, silently casting a spell: butterflies fluttered around them, their wings tickling his hair before they faded away. He was pleased she’d been practicing wandless magic, though he knew she was demonstrating for a reason.

  
  
“What do you want, Hermione?” he murmured softly.

  
  
Hermione yawned, resting her head against his shoulder. She often fell asleep while in his hold; listening to the radio, a muggle invention he allowed to hide just out of sight. “Will you read to me, Tom?” she asked, readjusting in his lap to face forward. “Please?”

  
  
He smiled; a crooked, genuine twitch of his lips. His poppet was a genuine sort; perhaps the only one who had no fear of him. Certainly, she was the only one asking him, Tom Riddle, Minister for Magic, to_ read_ to them. Silently he raised his hand; a heavy tome flying into it.

  
  
Hermione clapped her hands together, realizing what it was.

  
  
“Oh! Can we start at the beginning? This is my- “

  
  
“Favorite muggle story,” he finished, laying the open book in her lap. Illustrations danced on the page; a charcoal drawing of a boy with a bowl in-hand, begging for more, coming to life alongside a hastily scribbled, yawning cat. “Out of thousands and thousands. Did you think I’d forget?” he mused.

  
  
“No,” she replied, her fingers trailing beneath the printed words. The pages were still pristine, despite its age; he’d always taken perfect care of his things. “I _know _your memory is flawless,” she emphasized the word. “The Daily Prophet says so too.” 

  
  
His brow cocked. He should have known she read the paper; despite her vehemence for Skeeter, after she’d splashed a picture of them across the front (one taken when he’d brought her to Diagon Alley for the first time; pure joy on her face as she’d tugged on his hand, wanting him to hurry with her to Ollivander’s.) and refused to make a retraction. “It scares people.” Hermione added, kicking her legs. “Unsettles them, really; like when I told Theo that I read through a tome in a night that took him weeks to. He wouldn’t listen to me when I _told _him it was easy; he wouldn’t listen at _all_,” She pouted, irritation flitting across her face. “I doubt he understands it.”

  
  
“Does it?” Tom nuzzled the back of her head. “I can’t imagine why.” She snorted; and he knew she was smiling, hearing the sarcasm in his tone. They were the same; both talented _with_ magic, and not because of it. They thirsted for knowledge and relentlessly pursued it. It was a thirst he’d recognized as she’d aged, and why he chose to teach her himself. She flourished as she poured over his books and papers, trusting him without thought as he adjusted her wrist and whispered instructions into her ear. He taught her without limits and forced morality.

  
  
He taught her to be free.

  
  
And she? Impossibly, she taught him things; how laughter felt when it bubbled in his chest, before climbing up his throat and poured warmly from his lips when she cast her own patronus; a fluffy, baby otter that squeaked and bounded about the room, causing his own patronus; a svelte, haughty panther to give chase. How her fingers felt when entwined in his, and her head rested against his shoulder. And how it felt to have someone trust him without conditions; wanting nothing more from him than his trust in turn. His fingers joined hers, following the words across the page, and he soon whispered the words: “Oh, you must not talk about dying yet…”

  
  
He kept his chin atop her head, horribly content. 

  
  
He’d never been one to share his things, not when he could have them entirely to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by NCUH! 🦝🖤


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally had time to expand this chapter, and hope to work on another one tonight (10/24/19). I appreciate all the support I've had with my writing, not only with Curious Girl but with all my stories. I have the sweetest, sweetest readers, and it means more than I can truly put into words. You all inspire me to keep writing and sharing my work. 🖤🦝
> 
> If anyone would like to chat with me, I have my social info at the end of this chapter, and I've been thinking about making an Instagram too. I'm here for all of you, whether you'd like to chat about writing, or become friends! 💗 (Or both!)

The Malfoy estate was one of grandeur, and as of late ghastly, themed rooms filled with an assortment of priceless, and inherited antiques. Facing countless pieces of Malfoy history, upon her marriage, Narcissa made the Quibbler with her declaration that she would redecorate the manor, “dedicating each room’s style to a specific country,” therefore enabling her family to travel the world simply by touring the one hundred and ninety-five rooms. “I aim to economize,” she stated solemnly, “despite the fortunate times we live in.”

Tactfully, Narcissa didn't add that it kept her family from crossing paths with Muggles (something that would have made every pureblooded reader recoil) while allowing them the freedom to have an air of culture about them. After the requisite heir, Draco, appeared (within the first year of their marriage) he'd been nursed in the Parisian styled room; with its sculpted walls, overlaid with marble figures, and gilded furniture, before taking his first steps in the mirrored hall, with every house-elf looking on proudly from the shadows.

Thankfully, Lucius’ sitting room was left untouched by his wife’s decorating skills; its ornate, plasterwork, bold wallpaper inlaid with real gold, and a striking fresco of his Malfoy forefathers remaining where they had for decades. Enormous windows surveying the estate acted as a testament to the Malfoy will; the gardens revived from their overrun state, and the estate itself carved from a swampy wetland. Now, it was one of the most picturesque estates in Great Britain, and Lucius's sitting room faced the rising sun, a fitting symbol for how his family rose.

“The Potter boy is a nuisance, isn't he?" Tom questioned, his index finger tracing the rim of his crystal tumbler. It was filled with amber-colored liquid; one of the oldest whiskeys from the Malfoy collection, as Lucius had graciously informed him. His great grandfather had favored expanding the Malfoy cellars, modifying the stasis charm to enhance his collection, intensifying the flavor of his whiskeys and wines, and the gin that was kept for feminine company. It was a marvel the collection remained full, visitors to the estate clamoring for a drink; while Lucius saved the finest for select company, the Minister foremost among them.

The weeping ficus, Tom poured his glass into, gleefully soaked it up.

Really, it was a pity he couldn't make Dobby drink it; watching as Lucius withheld his anger at his inheritance being frittered, while the loyal house-elf sputtered and drank - but Tom had _some_ principles now. Disturbingly, they were reserved for house-elves and hideous familiars, his changed morals having _little_ to do with his curly-haired ward.

Ah, but he made do with sharing with the ficus; withholding his laughter as Lucius’ jaw twitched, both men aware of his amusement. Behind them, a fire crackled and hissed in the great fireplace, furiously piping smoke up the thick chimney.

“Yes, My Lord.” The man’s reflection pursed his lips. “The boy acts the same as his father.”

Neither Lucius nor Tom had considered James Potter even a passing acquaintance during their days at Hogwarts, nor the wide-eyed, and muggle-born girl, who'd later become his wife. No, they’d left wild-eyed Severus to trail after the pair, his heart embarrassingly on his sleeve when it came to the muggle-born, with Lucius looking on reprovingly. He’d known, even then, that the Gryffindor’s were nothing but an embarrassment; untried and untrue to the wizarding world, and as graceless as a newborn colt.

It was little wonder the Potter heir had gone mad.

They’d both read the Daily Prophet, its second page dedicated to the boy’s ranting, that morning in Diagon Alley. He'd screamed that the Minister was a terrible, soulless man; an _evil_ man. "Tell me, Lucius," Tom said slowly, toying with his sleeve. "Do you think me the Boogeyman, lurking in the shadows, and beneath the bed; all to snatch sleeping children from their beds?"

The fire that had taken the lives of the eldest Potters was of little consequence to him; as was their forgetfulness or _inaptitude_ to cast an extinguishing spell (James had never paid close attention during their lessons, had he?). That their wands were found miles away from their charred bodies mattered not, the spell could have been cast wandlessly.

A terrible tragedy.

“You’re far from being Dumbledore,” Lucius replied, and a nasty, twisted smile marred his elegant features. They had no love for their old transfiguration professor, one who’d become Headmaster after Dippet had retired. It had been expected, Dippet having named Dumbledore as his successor months earlier, but there was controversy, all the same, Dumbledore's acceptance of muggle-borns and half-bloods known throughout the wizarding world - an acceptance that was entirely against the Ministry’s conservative stance, on the matter. The relationship between the Minister’s office and Hogwarts was maintained; though Skeeter was quick to note that Dumbledore had only been invited for tea twice.

Tom rested against the windowpane, looking down to where his ward and the Malfoy heir played, in the famed gardens the Malfoys were praised for. His eyes narrowed as Draco tugged on Hermione’s hair, yanking her head back sharply. She drew her wand from her pocket and hexed him in response; his hair turning bright blue, and his nose rapidly expanded. He shrieked in response, and she glanced toward the window meaningfully before saying something that made his mouth snap shut in response. He bit the inside of his cheek, hiding his smile.

Bright girl.

Only then did he taste the blood he’d drawn; his sharp molars having cut into the flesh of his cheek. His tongue probed against the cut; his features smooth as it stung. “Should a trip to St. Mungo’s be arranged?” Lucius asked from behind him.

“I know somewhere more suitable for our friend,” Tom casually mused. No one knew the rapt attention he reserved for the young Potter, or rather, the_ issue_ he represented. His heated rantings (shrieking that Minister Riddle was Voldemort, a demented and vaguely _nose less_ bastard if Potter's frantically scrawled charcoal drawings were anything to go by) were amusing.

The ruckus, however, that they caused was not.

“The grounds at Stonehearst are rather pleasant this time of the year.”

Lucius sniffed, not without meaning. “Yes, I’ve heard they have the patients carving pumpkins and lighting candles in celebration of some Muggle ceremony as if they were the same.” 

“Did Bellatrix include that in one of her letters?” Tom hummed and smiled as his companion looked askance. “Perhaps she would find a companion in young Potter.” 

There had been countless rumors and smothered laughter when Skeeter had leaked the news that Bellatrix Lestrange had lived up to her married name, and had been sent off in the night like an illegitimate child to Stonehearst Asylum. The Malfoys had sued the Daily Prophet, as well as Skeeter personally and won a court settlement on both accounts, (Narcissa donating the galleons to children blinded and marred by hippogriffs) though it’d hardly put an end to the rampant gossip

Lucius sipped from his drink, before replying, “I wouldn’t know, My Lord.”

“Pity.”

Arrangements would be made for Potter to visit Stonehearst; a compassionate decision by the Minister personally. The mind healers were reputable, and the care kind, if horribly_ long_ term. Pure blooded families favored the place, sending their beloved children for a rest; pleased by the fact that visitors were allowed monthly, while the press was firmly hexed from their door. 

“Perhaps Narcissa would," Tom said softly. "Bellatrix delights in their letters, doesn’t she?” he knew of the owls that never stopped between the manor and the asylum, owls that took their rest at the Ministry. “Perhaps she too could answer why young Draco has an interest in teasing my ward; setting newts free in her curls and locking her in the cellar."

He drummed his fingers against his thigh. “Hermione was most upset when Dobby let her out, and tried to iron his ears afterward, on your son's orders. I trust you've not forgotten her feelings toward house-elves."

“I -“ Lucius swallowed dryly. “I apologize, My Lord. He is a spirited child -”

“Spirited, as you were.”

Lucius paled at the reminder of their history at Hogwarts; one that had left scars on the Minister’s back, from the_ teachings_ on the superiority of purebloods, he’d received, before everything had changed. “We were naive boys then-“

“A childhood crush, do you think? Or something more?” Tom continued as if the man had never interrupted. He was never one to forget his manners; not with the portraits of Malfoy’s ancestors about him, listening and watching in rapt attention. “Discussions for a betrothal are made during childhood, are they not? The children are both of age,” as soon as accidental magic had happened, marital arrangements came. Hermione had a burst of magic as a toddler when all the house-elves had found themselves wearing clothes, while Draco had transfigured his father’s favorite hunting dog into a comfortable chair; seemingly of his magic’s own volition.

Tom had once asked his Knights which their families feared more: having a half-blood (the same as a mudblood in their narrowed eyes) marry into the family or a pureblooded squib? The answer had been lost in their respective glasses of sherry and the smoking cigars they clutched in their hands.

“He is -“ Lucius grasped for a reply. “He is betrothed to the eldest Greengrass, girl, My Lord-“

The words were choked, as Tom flicked his cold gaze toward him. “Surely the Malfoys would enjoy a link to the house of Gaunt, over the house of Greengrass, Lucius.” It was rare that he used his family name; everything he had, down to the priceless cufflinks he wore engraved with T.M.R. Rarer still that the Malfoy patriarch was silent and still.

“Unless…?” Tom’s eyebrow raised.

Really, it took no use of Legilimency to see his thoughts whirring, as he licked his lips and sought an answer that would please the Minister. His friend, Riddle. He’d called him his best friend once; clasping his shoulder and cheering after they’d won a game of Quidditch against the riotous and loud Gryffindors as if nothing had ever happened between them, as if everything was the same still.

He never had again, not after the hand that had clasped Tom’s shoulder was crippled with arthritis, one that Nurse Pomfrey had gone into a tailspin trying to heal and troubled him still, as it spread throughout his body. He relied on his gilded cane, as it became more than a decorous accessory; every tailor in Diagon Alley knowing his approach, as they heard his cane against the pavement. It was a pity, for a man as vain as Lucius, to be marred (though his wife professed not to mind at all). 

“I believe My Lord,” he began carefully, “that Hermione would enjoy being free from a betrothal contract, through her youth. They can be wearisome if things change.” He knew that the Minister meant to raise his ward freely, allowing her to be bold in thought and in speech, where another purebred girl would have been whipped, and sent to Duramstang. The school prided itself on ceremony and old-world manners, where Hogwarts was vast in its freedoms, and compassionate allowances.

“Perhaps.”

Tom slipped his wand from his sleeve and held it in his hand. He felt his magic surround him, and the wand warmed in his hand as if heeding his call. And it did, it always did; magic never leaving him.

Lucius inclined his head, his platinum locks curtaining his face. “As your ward, she will have countless requests for her hand-“ he licked his lips as if searching for the right words to say. “There may be another heir you find pleasing -“ his own betrothal had been with Bellatrix, before his father had dismissed it in favor of her sister, Narcissa. Lucius’s thoughts had never been asked, nor had Bellatrix, as she threatened to hang herself from the rafters if the betrothal was undone.

“Pretty words, Lucius.” The man had said nothing displeasing, his words perfectly correct, even if they both knew the sentiment behind them was lacking. His feelings toward half-bloods and muggle-born were well-known, even to those on the continent. “Yet, tell me,” Tom said, his voice silky. “Did you address my ward by her title, even once, Lucius?”

The mark on Lucius’s arm burned as the snake turned in on itself; catching its tail with its mouth. “Forgive me,” Lucius murmured, bowing his head. “I spoke without thought.”

They knew that he hadn’t, as he sought allowances that were allowed no one else. He was worse than Mulciber or Nott, though his talent with words rivaled Dolohov's. Still, there were lessons to follow, examples to be made of, as they both knew.

The Minister was a hard master, one who demanded absolute loyalty from his unwavering followers. There were no allowances with him, no chances, only the games that he permitted between his followers, to play. Some, like Bellatrix or Regulus, had played been devoured by the games.

Tom set his glass aside on the windowsill.

“A reminder then,” he said as pleasantly, as he had when he was Head Boy giving new students a tour about Hogwarts; his wand in his hand, the same as he held Hermione’s when she’d learned to walk down the stairs. He could be endlessly, tirelessly, patient. “Hermione is our precious Lady, Lucius, one without equal, and should be addressed as such.”

Lucius stiffened, before stretching his arms out, and upturned his shaking palms. He knew, as the others did, the cost of forgetfulness. And really, their Lady’s title was simple to remember. Wasn’t it? 

“_Crucio_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Thank you for beta'ing, Grammarly, and NCUH. :) 
> 
> PS: Did anyone catch the easter egg? Stonehearst Asylum is a terrific movie; a spooky, gothic romance that is a must-watch. 👻🖤


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expanded Chapters 2 and 3, and I hope to edit the other chapters too! I want to expand the chapters for everyone, since I originally wanted to write shorter chapters, with more frequent updates. I've decided on the reverse (though hopefully not *too* long between updates!) now that I have a clearer idea of where I'd like the story to go. 
> 
> Though I've taken it out of my ending notes if anyone has a request/prompt for something they'd like to see in Curious Girl, feel free to tell me! I have a list of past requests and intend on incorporating them into the story if I'm able. Orrr I might use them for one-shots, as if they were AU's of Curious Girl, or write them as AU drabbles. :)
> 
> Thank you again for all of the wonderful, wonderful support. The response I've received to Curious Girl, as well as my other stories is something I could hardly dream of and deeply appreciate. This past month I've struggled with several things, and my family has too. My mental state hasn't been the best, and writing has helped me to ground myself, and your comments/messages truly mean more than I can say. 🖤🦝
> 
> PS: As I said before, if anyone would like to chat with me, I have my social info at the end of this chapter, and I've been thinking about making an Instagram too. I'm here for all of you, whether you'd like to chat about writing, or become friends! 💗 (Or both!)

“Lord Riddle -“  
  


“No, Winky,” He called over his shoulder, taking the stairs two at a time. He’d waved his house-elves aside, as they chattered and surrounded him, eager to take his outer coat and undo his shoes, as if he were a man undone, and in his cups. The scent of tobacco and cloves clung to him as he strode through the dimly lit hallway before he stopped before her door.

  
  
He was late, an_unacceptable_ thing to be.

  
  
The gala had run past midnight, before he’d been able to make his excuses, and depart. He opened the door, not aware of the breath that he was holding, as his eyes sought the one, he was looking for. His ward was at her vanity, her silk pajamas on, and her nose buried in a book. It was how he would always remember her, no matter how she aged - her face buried in a book, and her curls framing her cheeks.

  
  
“Tom,” Hermione greeted, without looking up. He withheld his smile, seeing the title of her well-worn novel: _A Hogwarts History_. It was one of her favorites, never far from her nightstand, if it wasn’t in her lap.  
  
  
  
“Again, Hermione?”

  
  
  
“Again,” she said.  
  
  
  
He waited as she finished her page and folded the corner before crossing the room towards her. “I missed you,” she said, glancing up at him; the freckles dusted across her nose evident as she sucked on her bottom lip. She was always honest, and earnest, his sweet girl. “Did the Potter supporters interrupt your speech, claiming you were the nose less terror again?”

  
  
Tom smirked at her nickname for Voldemort, before ruffling her curls.

  
  
He’d known she’d gone through his private papers again; the last incident of public accusations that he was Voldemort kept from the press. Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to care; not when she felt warm, and solid beneath his hand. “Were you worried, dove?” He said, not adding that Nott had kept him longer with news of a pending article in the Daily Prophet, decrying the Ministry’s decision to hand Potter over to Stonehearst. “You knew I’d come back; I always do.”

He was rarely one for sentiment, but there were allowances he made himself, on occasion. Fire whiskey warmed his veins, as he hummed, moving his fingers from her curls to finger the pajama strap that clung to her shoulder. He'd bought her the set in Paris, a silk number with bees embroidered on the fabric.

  
  
“True,” she agreed. “I thought to sleep but I wanted to wait for you,” she added, glancing at the grandfather clock that filled her room. Its wide face displayed the constellations, ones that were charmed to reflect the ones that shined outside her window. “I’m not in trouble, am I, Tom?”

  
  
“Tsk, tsk, Miss Hermione,” Tom mocked, the same as when he was Head boy. “Out after curfew? I should take away house points.”

  
  
“Actually, I- “she glanced at him a moment, before ducking her head, though he’d already seen the pink blush staining her cheeks. He'd quickly learned that her emotions showed themselves on her face; Hermione easily smiling when she was happy, her eyes dancing when she was amused, just as her eyebrows would knit when she was in thought, or her lower lip would wobble when she was stubbornly trying her best to not cry. "I might lose a lot of them, Tom if I'm honest."

  
  
_Ah_. She was terribly honest, and he held himself still, careful not to crush her to him. She was unlike the others he’d known at Hogwarts, the cold terrors that he’d surrounded himself with, and became the Lord of. She was herself, something that no one else had the inclination to be, not if they were Slytherin.

  
  
‘_Show some Gryffindor bravery_, _little dove_.’

  
  
“Mhm, Poppet?” His fingers glided to curl beneath her chin, gently tipping her head back before beginning to comb his fingers through her tangled curls. He’d always taken care of them for her, chiding her when she was younger for wrenching a brush through her curls, and making herself cry. He’d taken the brush from her, and tended to them himself, something he still did. She watched him through half-lidded eyes in her vanity mirror.

  
  
“I’d like you to forgive Crooks,” Hermione paused a moment, chewing on the inside of her lip. It darkened beneath her attention; blood rushing to the surface her teeth broke through her skin, and his eyes keenly tracked the movement. “He didn’t _mean_ to blind Nagini, he was going for Percy, you see. He told me!”

  
  
“Did he now?” Tom's lips twitched at the thought. Neither he nor his little ward was fond of the ginger-haired, prickly man; though his skills at assisting the Minister were, as of yet, unsurpassed (especially at barring the disgraced Kingsley and his supporters from his door).

  
  
“Yes,” she nodded emphatically, as serious as only she could be. “Crooks is quite sorry and would like you to stop having the elves dose his food with sleeping powder. It’s making him terribly groggy throughout the day, and he’s feeling repentant about the matter. As his owner, I am too.” 

  
  
As if he _could_ forget who owned the scraggly, fierce-some beast.

  
  
He'd known of kneazles before, the giant groundskeeper at Hogwarts having kept one for a time before it had taken to living in the forest instead. Tom had been appalled by their mangy fur and squished in faces while raising his eyebrow at how his ward adored it. “And I…I don’t want him to be affected,” she explained, “Not anymore, since he’s very sorry, Tom.”

  
His long fingers rested on the back of her neck. “Is he sorry enough to stay outside my bed?” He asked, musing that his ward was, perhaps, the only person in the world who didn't shudder at him touching her; whether from fear or desire. There was no fleeting thought of how easily he could snap her neck, nor draw his wand against it; she had no other thought, but trust in him. Hermione leaned her back against his chest and tipped her head up to study him.

  
  
“You know Crooks isn’t fond of the dark,” she said indignantly. “He can’t be alone at night, and your room is closer than mine-“ there was only a room between their bedrooms; a small space that acted as his private study, far different than the grand one he had at the Ministry. Tom knew that the house-elves were perpetually mending the carpet that ran through the long hallway, Hermione treading a familiar path over it, to his room.

  
  
“And you spend your nights in my bed,” he interrupted smoothly. “Of course, your familiar is bound to follow you.” He’d woken up countless nights with Hermione wrapped about him like a starfish; her head against his shoulder, with her arms and legs wrapped about him, while Crookshanks slept on the other side of him. His tail seemed to have a mind of its own; swishing against Tom’s shoulder, and the end of it tickling his nose. It was a familiarity that none had ever had with him, and now there were two in his bed, Nagini having her own bed in a leather chair nearby.

  
  
His lips twitched; both amused and faintly annoyed at her closeness to her raggedy familiar. Hermione had always been drawn to snakes, her clumsy imitations at parseltongue calling small snakes to her. Garter snakes and other common ones slunk through the garden, following her footsteps; while larger, keener ones looked on in minor interest. She’d gathered garter snakes in her pocket, taking them inside where the house-elves screamed (finding them sleeping away in her jumper, or weaving about her neck. He'd been pleased with her choice, as his own familiar was the snake that was ever loyally at his side. Nagini shared his adoration for his ward; winding herself about the girl's shoulders and lap while she read, and occasionally slept beside her in bed.

  
  
After Nagini had decided that _she_ would be the only snake in the manor, he'd found himself with Hermione's arms flung about his waist, and her tears soaking into his formal robes. Her familiar, a black and white striped, garter snake named Pans had vanished (presumably into Nagini's greedy jaws). He'd promised her another familiar; privately deciding on one that was larger (harder to digest) and preferably able to defend itself, instead of promptly meeting its end and sending his ward into floods of tears.

  
Still, the mangy, half-kneazle beast that had leaped into the open carrier he held, hadn't been his first choice and neither was it Nagini's. The familiars had come nose to nose through the carrier, and Crookshanks had hissed and spit, while the snake had drawn itself up to strike. It'd taken keeping them in separate wings of the manor for weeks before they'd made an uneasy truce; the kneazle warily eyeing the snake, while the indignant snake refused to have anything to do with Tom, knowing that he’d brought the offensive creature home.  
  
  
The house-elves had driven themselves into a frenzy by watching over the familiars, Tom sometimes leaving his familiar at the manor while he worked. Nagini lashed out at the house-elves when Hermione spent time with Crooks, while Crooks had run away twice after his mistress had spent time with Nagini in turn. She was close to both of them, holding Crooks against her and burying her face in his fur, while she was apt to let Nagini wind about her shoulders too.

"But he is sorry, _truly_ Tom. I’ll ask him to sleep in the study.” Her dark eyes were filled with determination, as she moved to cradle his cheek in her hand. He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of her fingers seep into his skin. “And he’ll catch some rats for Nagini to eat, you know how she likes the ones in the cellar.”

  
  
Tom kept his features serene, assuming the same, placid manner that he greeted foreign dignitaries, harried secretaries, and bumbling purebloods with. His dove was laying it on rather thick, wasn’t she?

  
  
Subtlety escaped Gryffindor’s entirely.

  
  
“Please?” his eyes met hers, as her fingers dropped from his face. He felt cold seep into his skin again, despite the warming charm interwoven in his robes. 

  
  
He reached for her ivory-handled brush, before holding his curls in his hand. He ran the brush over the tangled strands and hummed as he thought aloud. “Mhm, Crookshanks has been rather well behaved this week, hasn’t he?” He mused, his fingers gliding beneath her chin; and tipping her head forward.

"He's helped Winky every day!" Hermione chimed. Her words always came faster, when she thought others thought the same as she did. "He caught the largest rat that she'd ever seen yesterday. It was larger than my fist," she made her fingers into one; showing him in the gilded mirror. "He - the rat - started shrieking when he saw me, it even made Winky cover her ears." Her nose wrinkled at the memory. She’d never liked the furry creatures much, having once caught one chewing on the cover of her favorite book of muggle fairytale, and liked them even less after hearing one scream.

Still, she was glad that Crooks hadn’t eaten him. "Crookshanks held him by the tail until Winky could find a box large enough for him. She said that she would give him to Dobby, he's been wanting a pet."

"What if the rat was meant for Nagini?" Tom teased her while brushing her hair back against her nape. "Crooks stole her dinner, besides blinding her eye.” He clucked his tongue, his irritation at the scrape between the familiars resurfacing. “He’s been a very naughty cat, Hermione. A very dangerous one, at that.” He drummed his fingers against her shoulder, before lowering his voice. “What if he’d hurt you, little one?”

The trust he had in his ow familiar was one he had with no other, including his ward’s familiar. He’d watched as Hermione had taken to the half kneazle, petting him gently, and stroking him under the chin until he purred. Still, Tom was weary of the creature, perfectly aware of how it could turn on her if provoked. 

“He wouldn’t though,” she protested. “He’s half-kneazle, and everyone knows how loyal kneazles are to the ones they respect. Crooks wouldn’t let me hold him, or even _approach_ him if he didn’t respect me.”  
  
  
She couldn't toss her head, though he knew she would have tried if he hadn't been brushing her hair. She was precocious and spirited; her fire increasing with every passing year, though it was tempered by the impeccable manners he’d taught her to have. There were no unpleasantries, no incidents reported in the Prophet from the Minister’s ward spurning the press or quibbling with a shop owner.  
  
  
There were enough insufferable heirs, children that snapped and snarled, without ever having an original thought in their head. He preferred Hermione as she was; having countless thoughts and ideas, though she knew to not wave her hand toward her tutors, not as she once had. There was little reason to when she was the only student they taught; her lessons taken alone.  
  
  
She drew him from his thoughts as she shifted, wincing as the movement tugged at her hair. He murmured an apology and pressed a chaste kiss to her scalp. She was the one person he wanted free, the only one he didn’t want to pain. It was strange, as he felt a weight in his chest, that she mattered to him at all; muggle-born as she was.  
  
  
“Besides I know _Episkey_; you taught me yourself if he ever hurt me." She peeked a look at him, her dark eyes filled with a warmth that he longed to have mirrored in his own. "Or you, or Nagini."

"Not Percy?" He asked, setting the brush aside in favor of twining her curls about his fingers. He'd become quite adept at plaiting her hair into a thick braid that she favored, before going to bed. In the morning, it calmed her wild curls into submission when unwound; chocolate-colored curls cascading down her back, instead of resembling an unsightly, if charming, bird’s nest.

  
  
“If he said please,” Hermione said primly, folding her hands in her lap. “You wouldn’t have to say it though, or Nagini, or Crooks or any of the elves.” His fingers stilled mid-braiding at her next matter-of-fact words. “You’re my family.”

His stomach curled in a way not unlike when she'd said they were friends; months ago. She’d never called him anything but Tom; not after he’d chided her for calling him her father. He wasn’t, he’d said. She was his ward, and he was her guardian, but they were not father and daughter. “I would have you call me Tom or nothing at all, poppet.” He’d said, tipping her chin up so her eyes met his, and she’d seen how serious he was.

And she did until she'd called him her friend, and he'd scoffed at the idea.

  
  
Now - now he swallowed, his throat feeling terribly dry.

He remembered then, shortly after the news had broken that he'd taken on a muggle-born orphan as his ward, the howler he’d received from one Molly Weasley. Percy had stammered and turned gaunt as Tom told him, all while toying with his wand. “_Do you think me foolish for taking on a child_?” He’d asked Percy, watching as his assistant pulled at his collar, and hotly denied it. “_Or a failure, as your mother does, before I have even tried_?”

Aside from Percy, only Bill and Charlie had been invited to the Minister’s office; where neither’s skills could be denied, and Hermione reveled in the latter’s tales about his dragon sanctuary. The others had been promptly barred from the official residence; as well as the homes of those who favored the Minister. Still -

  
  
_Still_.

  
  
Tom shoved the uncertain feeling away, locking it in the same place thoughts and feelings concerning his father stayed. “Crooks can stay then,” he said, before finishing her braid. She turned on the furred stool and slipped her arms about his waist; hugging him tightly. “Thank you, Tom!” She said, and he felt her tears seep into his robes. He wanted to wipe them away with his fingers, feeling as her tears stained his skin, though he wouldn’t allow himself to be greedy.

Not with her. Not yet.

  
  
“Silly girl,” he murmured, drawing his fingers against the small of her back. Her heart was soft and yielding to another, while his was coiled and fraught in his chest. “What am I to do with you?”

  
  
“Take me to bed?” She asked cheekily, and he didn’t bother holding back a chuckle. She had a sense of humor that few knew, one that delighted him as they spent time together. Fewer too knew that Tom knew how to laugh, the same as any other man (though, he supposed the house-elves would have heard him laugh when he was with Hermione, though they would never tell another).  
  
  
His laughter had always taken aback his peers, inspiring fear and nervous laughter, like the time he’d chuckled over Mulciber ruining his potion by adding fire stones. The cauldron had immediately corroded, and the potion boiled over his desk, while others shrieked in fear. Mulciber had always been predictable, his foolhardy attitude making Potions a challenging class for him, while Tom watched in amusement. There wasn’t one among Slytherin who didn’t know Mulciber had been called before his father, and scolded for his failing grades, as he’d had to repeat Potions twice before fourth year.

  
  
“As you wish, Hermione, though you know Crooks isn't here," he said, lifting and holding her small body against his. He wanted her close, then, the only one that he allowed to be. "Are you sure it's him who's afraid of the dark?" Hermione huffed, tucking her head against his shoulder.

  
  
“Please, Tom?”

  
  
"You ask so sweetly," he mused, feeling her yawn against his collar. “So prettily.”

Who was he to deny her? And himself, if he was honest; as he carried her from her room to his. It always seemed cold in his room, no matter how fiercely the fire burned in the marble fireplace or the piping hot tea that the elves left on his nightstand, accompanied by a teacup of warm milk for his ward. Somehow, they knew what he was loath to admit to himself.

  
  
Hermione had made a place in his life, one that made him feel the same as other men; no, other mortals. He felt real beside her, hearing his heartbeat, and felt his lungs expand as he inhaled and exhaled. And it was then, beside her, that he felt the coldness that pervaded the tips of his fingers; and made his toes curl, aching from the bitter cold.

But as he slipped beneath the covers then, taking the clinging girl with him; he’d never felt warmer. His chest was filled with crackling embers, and his rib cage molded beneath his skin; filled with the thought of her. “Sleep tight, sweet dove,” he murmured, his lips brushing against her temple.

  
  
She peeked her eyes up at him and smiled. “Night, Tom.”

  
And as the door creaked open, and a half-kneazle padded to the foot of the bed, Hermione’s voice came again. “Night Crooks,” and another came too, the door pushed wider, and a hiss filled the air. “Night Nagini.”

Beneath the covers, Tom laughed.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Thank you for beta'ing, Grammarly, and NCUH. 🦝🖤


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 🖤 
> 
> Tom loves to play games, doesn't he? “_Să fiu sincer_," is Romanian (at least according to an online dictionary) for "to be free"...

“Did you know- “

  
  
“That Merlin loved Arthur?” Theo didn’t look up from his paper, his quill scratching answers across the parchment. In-between reading _Camelot_ and peppering him with questions about his Defense Against Dark Arts essay, she’d been reading facts aloud about their wizarding forefather. He hadn’t blinked when she set _Camelot_ on the table and burrowed her head between the pages; as if the Muggle book wasn't banned throughout Britain, and every copy of it in the wizarding world burned. "I don’t know why. Arthur seems like he was a swot, didn’t he?”

  
  
“Arthur had dignity,” Hermione replied, her cheeks colored pink. “He wouldn’t have pulled Excalibur if he was a swot like Draco.”

  
  
“A lot of dignity when his wife was cheating with that knight of hers,” Theo snorted, and peeked across the table; where his younger friend was scowling at him. Her curls crackled too; a seemingly distinct indication of her mood.

  
If he were a Gryffindor fool, he would have reached across the table, and felt how soft her curls were.

  
  
But he wasn’t, and he was glad for it. Someone needed to be around to keep Draco alive when all he wanted to do was taunt and tease the girl in question; never learning from being hexed. Blaise would hardly keep him alive; only encouraging him in his ideas. Though, if Theo was honest (something he tried to be, if only with himself), he thought that Draco didn’t mind having Hermione’s full attention, even if it _was_ only when she was hexing him.

  
  
Theo shook his head when Hermione flicked her wand; causing his written words to re-sort themselves so they were backward. "What I was going to say," Hermione said, her fingers the hilt of her wand, "was Merlin loved Morgana, as much as he envied her."

  
  
“Morgana, the mother of hags?” Theo laughed, but cupped his cheek and rested his elbows on the table; ready to listen to his friend anyway. They both shared a love for reading that the others didn’t, and passed each other books in their own sort of ‘book club’, one that no one else was invited to (except for her familiar, Crookshanks, whom Hermione swore read alongside with her, even putting his paw on the page when she went to turn it - “_He wasn’t done reading it yet_,” she explained.) and, no one else even _knew_ about. 

  
It wouldn't do for Blaise, or Draco or someone like_ Pansy _Parkinson, Theo shuddered at this thought, to know that their reading choices had quickly expanded on to Muggle titles. The Riddle library was full of them, though, Hermione had given him a meaningful glance, and a pinch to his arm when she'd shown him a portrait of Salazar Slytherin and whispered an incantation in front of it.

  
  
“_Să fiu liber_.”

  
  
The portrait had turned upside down, and a glamoured bookcase revealed itself beside the fireplace. It was filled with leather-bound tomes; ones that revealed their titles when Hermione ran her fingers across their spines. They were Muggle novels, Theo realized, most of them banned under the Ministry’s previous edict (when even Hogwarts hadn’t been able to keep their Muggle books, burning them in a pyre while the Ministry official watched, and a nervous Dippet wrung his hands).

  
  
“_You** mustn’t** tell anyone, Theo_,” Hermione had told him, before letting him keep the book he’d pulled with a golden beast on the front. “_Or Tom will be awfully cross with you, and I will too_.”

  
  
“_I’d rather snap my wand in half_,” He’d told her earnestly, and meant it.

  
  
He remembered when the Minister (Somehow, Minister Riddle, could never be _Tom_ to him) came to their family manor for a solstice party, with his ward beside him. It was the first time most of the attending purebloods had seen her, outside of the few pictures released in the newspaper, and those fortunate enough to be invited to the Minister's estate (the Notts excluded from this after his father had contributed to both Riddle and Kingsley's campaigns).

  
  
She’d looked like a fairy; a wild and terrifying fairy with her baby-blue robes, and shimmering stars in her hair. There was the constellation Cygnus, and Perseus, and others that he wanted to run his fingers through, and name. A snake coiled itself about her neck; its tongue tasting the air as if an invitation to those who dared to come closer.

  
  
She'd met the purebloods as if they were her equals; a mere child like him, one without his breeding (the newspaper article had been clear about her muggle heritage) with her head held high and gave them each a smile. Theo doubted anyone missed the way the Minister watched the ones who greeted her, surely measuring every word they said, and how much they’d cricked their necks when they bowed. 

  
  
And the way, one, Walburga Black hadn’t greeted her at all; only to be escorted out by her husband, Orion. Soon after, her cheeks were a dark shade of red and her lips twisted as if she’d sucked on something sour, while Orion looked positively_ green_. Or was it grey? Either way, the Minister hadn’t spared a glance, and neither had the rest of them.

  
  
Theo saw, and heard it all; including his mother’s intake of breath as the Minister had kept Hermione (He’d heard her name whispered through the crowd) by his side, never letting her out of his sight, even when the men had taken their port and cigars. Instead, she'd sat beside him, and conjured doves wandlessly; letting them roam about the room, and perch on the back of chaises, cooing sweetly.

  
  
It wasn’t done, Theo knew. It’d never been done, certainly not with a girl younger than him.

  
  
“_It’s unnatural_,” his cousin, Lydia, hissed. “_It’s unseemly-_ “

  
  
“_It’s the Minister_,” her brother had retorted. “_Do you think he cares? You’re set to be betrothed to his undersecretary, mind your words, Lydia, or you won’t last long.”_ Theo had finished his scone, before wandering the halls to the library; where he’d known no one would miss him, as long as he was back to see the others off.

  
  
And he’d found a girl with the house elves beside her, letting them pet the snake; one rumored to be the Minister’s familiar. “_She won’t bite_,” Hermione had assured them. “_Nagini knows to be polite, especially to all of you. She’s the mascot of a club I’ve just created-_ “

  
  
She’d stopped when she’d sensed someone at the doorway and met his awestruck look with a sheepish grin of her own. “_Master Theo_!” The elves cried, and hastily abandoned petting the snake, though he thought they looked vaguely relieved. “_Master Theo should be at the party-_ “One pawed at his robes, while another wrung their hands anxiously; and a third tugged at his ear. “_Master’s father will be angry!_”

  
  
“_I’m happy here_,” Theo said, easily brushing the elves off, before bowing to Hermione. “_My name’s Theo, Theodore Nott_.”

She looked at him a moment, with dark eyes before pursing her lips. "_Are you going to tell Tom that I'm in here?_" she asked, motioning to the bookshelves, and where the house-elves had been (before they'd apparated away, leaving Nagini to wind herself around Hermione, resting protectively about her neck). “_I wasn’t supposed to go off by myself, but I **knew **there was a library here, and -_“

  
  
“_Tom-_ “Oh.

  
  
He blinked. “_Minister Riddle_?”

  
  
“_His name is Tom_,” Hermione had corrected, before looking longingly at the stuffed bookshelves. “_Are you going to tell him?_” She asked again, tugging at one of her curls. “_I just wanted to see your library_\- “

  
  
He grinned.

  
  
“_I like reading too_,” he said, before moving to a bookshelf where he knew every title by heart. “_This one is a favorite of mine_.” He pulled the heavy book free, before showing it to her. He hadn’t shown anyone before; except his peregrine falcon, Penny, and she’d promptly nipped at the cover, tearing the corner of it off. “_It's the first edition, passed down through the-_ “

He was interrupted by her squeal, as she snatched the book from him; cradling it against her chest. "_It's the first edition?_" She repeated, her eyes widening. "_I've only seen a reprint of this in the Malfoy library!_"

Theo smirked, his pretty teeth flashing. “_The author was indebted to an ancestor of mine_,” he explained. “_His wife ran up a large debt with us, one that he couldn’t pay. His writing was a flop at first, you know, funny that it’s a classic now.”_

  
  
And there, in the library, they’d chatted away until the Minister and his parents had found them, with abashed house-elves trailing behind them. They were curled on one of the leather couches; her head resting against his shoulder, and the book between them, as if they’d always been friends.

  
  
“_Hermione_,” the Minister had said softly, and she’d come like a dog to its owner, with her cheeks flushed pink and her hand reaching for his. “_Theo_,” He’d addressed him. “_Thank you for taking care of my ward_.”

  
  
“_Of course, sir_ -“

  
  
The Minister had tipped his head, before saying goodbye to the others. With his arm about his ward's shoulder, they'd gone to leave; Hermione looking back and waving. "_Bye Theo_!”

  
  
His hand had lifted on its own and waved before he had a chance to think. His mother grabbed his shoulder, shaking him after the Minister and Hermione (She was Hermione, he told himself; not just a Muggle-born ward).

  
  
“_What happened? With the Minister’s ward, really, Theo -_ “

  
  
“_I’ve think I’ve made a friend_,” He’d said, still watching the vacant hallway; the light streaming in from the windows. “_A friend, Mother_.”

  
  
Three years later, and his words still held true. 

  
  
“I don’t think it’s true,” Hermione said, running her fingers against the grooves in the wooden table. “Morgana was _special_; she was beautiful and knew magic that none of us have even _heard_ of.” Her voice was filled with longing. “Can you imagine how powerful she was, Theo? Even the furies feared her.”

  
  
Theo sensed a_ but_.

“Arthur loved her, and Merlin did too, though it says he feared her too.” Her eyebrows knit together. “They could have learned together, instead of Merlin fearing her, couldn’t they? Helped each other. Like how you helped me with my potion when I was cutting the toadstools wrong-”

  
"It isn't always easy," Theo said, glancing down at his paper where the words had righted themselves around. Hermione always fixed what she'd done, though she'd left Draco's hair blue for weeks; no matter the counterspells he'd used to turn it back. "Not everyone thinks like us, Hermione."

  
  
She pursed her lips at that, before nodding. “The author says that when Morgana left Camelot, every place where her tears touched the ground, forget-me-nots grew.” She continued to trace her finger against the grooves; indigo petals surfacing from them. “I wish she would have stayed.”

  
"If she had, we'd be saying _oh Morgana_ now," Theo teased. “Wouldn’t we?” She cracked a smile at that.

  
  
“I think so,” she looked thoughtful, nibbling on her lip. “If only Morgana would have written the spells she used down, or even her charms, Theo. You’d pass all your exams then, even if I wasn’t helping you.”

  
  
Of _course_, she’d read his essay as he’d worked on it; despite it being upside down for her. “I fixed some lines for you,” she said matter-of-factly. He re-read the words he’d written, and realized they were better than before.

  
  
“Know-it-all,” he said, and she rolled her eyes.

  
  
“At least I’m not a ferret-faced git, like Draco.” She retorted, and he snickered.

  
  
Everyone in the Slytherin dorm rooms had seen the ferret that had raced through the hallways to their common room, holding a carefully wrapped package in its mouth. It’d jumped at Draco when Blaise had called him to come see the creature; making itself snug in his arms and pushed the gift against his chest. With flushed cheeks, Draco had opened it, and found a knitted scarf inside; made in green and silver. The gift had gone unsigned, but Theo had an idea of who’d sent it.

  
  
After all, who was the girl who’d written him after a Slytherin vs Gryffindor, Quidditch game asking how it went? (Despite adding after, “_I’d only **really** like to know who won - did Draco fall and break his nose? Did Blaise make a good steal?”)._

  
  
“True,” Theo replied. “You’re more of a harpy, at least with your hair sometimes- “

  
  
He found himself silenced, and across the table, Hermione gave him a sheepish smile. “Hope you don’t have a presentation tomorrow, Theo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by NCUH! 🦝🖤


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: Please read the tags, this chapter is *squicky* and the start of a changing relationship between Tom and Hermione. There won't be smut yet, however, as tasteful as I'm trying to handle their relationship, there may be *squicky* scenes from here on out.
> 
> Thank you for all your comments, kudos, bookmarks, etc. It truly means so much to me, and I love hearing from you dolls! 🦝🖤 If you would like to read more tomione stories, please check out Seanymphe's work: (https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seanymphe/pseuds/Seanymphe)
> 
> It's simply *divine* to read, and her story, "A Change In Priorities", sparked my interest in tomione. All of her stories are works of art, and if you enjoy tomione, you'll love her work for sure. She's a sweetheart and her work is perfect. 🖤

Water splashed over the porcelain sides, and across the tile below.

Tom leaned against the door and smirked as he heard the sound of her blissful laughter. "Must you, Hermione?" He called lowly, knowing she'd hear him through the door. He knew too, that she was unrepentant, as gleeful as a duck splashing in a pond. He knew how she preferred her bath; running the water himself, charming the water to be perfectly warm, with bubbles floating across the top. When she was younger, she delighted in having him read to her while she bathed and squealed with laughter when he dipped her head back, washing her curls.

“Yes.” She replied, laughter accompanying her splashing.

He rested his back against the door and conjured false feathers; baby pink, wispy flowers that tickled his fingers. They were among Hermione’s favorite, the manor regularly filled with fresh flowers, ones that were charmed to change with the season. Their petals never wilted, though Hermione often pinched their petals, and weaved floral crowns for herself, and Winky. She’d made Tom wear one too, one of the framed photos on her nightstand showing the two of them wearing one.

The false feathers faded as they fell toward the ground, turning to ash about his oxford clad feet. Water seeped beneath the crack in the door, staining the leather of his sole; a fact he chose to ignore.

He had hundreds more, his closet filled with an assortment of finely crafted oxfords, tailored suits, and robes that were the envy of the wizarding world. They mattered little, most inherited after Abraxas Malfoys’ unfortunate accident. As it was, he wore dark colors, and rich fabrics as a second skin; rarely touching the others that hung in his closet, pressed and with a tag inscribed when and where they’d last been worn (Winky tactfully omitting the charm to add, by _who_).

No, his shoes were of little consequence to him.

Rather, it was the sudden silence that struck him; the lack of laughter from the other side of the door. "Hermione?" He turned forward, his hand going to the knob. The only ones that could open the doors of the manor were Hermione, the house-elves, and himself, though visitors themselves were warded from ever going to the second floor of the manor, where the living quarters were. Sometimes they would see a girl watching from a bay window as they left, her small figure twitching the velvet curtains aside, and even rarer still, she’d wave to them.

No one, however, would know, no one would _ever _see, Tom with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a smile on his lips as he ran soapy fingers through his ward’s hair, and had bubbles on his face (after she’d giggled, smearing them across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose). Now that she was older, she had him stand outside the door instead; with a towel in hand and chatted through the door. It was the simple times he yearned for, the same as when she laid her head in his lap, and he stroked her cheek while he read a missive from the Ministry.

The times he couldn't, when he was called away to the Ministry or attended a party, Nagini draped herself over the bath; while Hermione buried her nose in a book and stroked his familiar's flank. Nagini was furiously jealous if Winky tried to help her bathe, hissing until she went away, while Crookshanks was never a worry (avoiding the hall with the washroom entirely, never a fan of water).

Hermione always told him it wasn't the same, though she adored Nagini, the two couldn't compare. She had conversations with Nagini, the snake patient with her clumsy attempts at parseltongue, and replied slowly, making sure her young mistress could understand her. Nagini knew how much weight she could apply, as she wove about Hermione's neck, or rested on the bathtub's edge around her. But Tom, she always longed for his company and reveled when she could have it undisturbed, as she did when she bathed. 

Tom frowned, and called her name again: “Hermione? Pet?”

He felt a chill at her silence, goosebumps surfacing across his skin. It was disturbingly easy to see her underwater, her features pale and beautiful, as if she were a virgin wraith; drowned and cursed to never wake again. It was an image that haunted him, as it sunk into his chest, and bitterly teased his ribcage. He felt his bones breaking, as if they were relentlessly pulled apart, and turned to piece his insides. He felt vomit rise in the back of his throat, and the chandelier above him flickered, his magic gathering close to him as if it sensed the inclosing threat. 

“T-Tom-“

_hermione_-

He hesitated a moment, forcing his trembling hand against his side, and curled his fingers inward. He would have nothing to betray him; forcing his body to follow his will, as he opened the door.

Hermione curled against the side of the porcelain bath, with her arms wrapped about her knees, and wide, frightened eyes. He felt something cold and vile slither down his back, pricking his spine with its tongue. “There’s something-“ she licked her lips. “S-Something _wrong_, Tom-“

He crossed the room in quick strides, before leaning over the bath. His arms rested on the sides, as he swept his harsh gaze over her, and the water -

She raised one, shaking palm toward him where crimson covered her fingers.

_blood_.

“It c-came out of me.” Hermione pressed her knees together and shook her head, her damp curls plastered about her face. He’d never known her like this before, never fallible, and mortal. It was more than when he pressed his face against her chest, and listened to the steady beat of her heart, or tended to her scrapped knees and dirt-covered cheeks.  
  
  
This was different from it all.  
  
  
He felt her unease; her fear palpable in the room, as her emotions wildly swirled. She’d never been afraid of her weaknesses before; her sniffling colds, and her childhood accidents. And he’d -  
  
  
He’d felt the same as she had, before, just as he now shared her fear.

He’d given no thought to her as she aged, the things that came with her changing state, or the thoughts that she’d begin to have. He often skimmed her thoughts with Legilimency, using it for easy insight when she was a babbling child, and gleaning her thoughts when he taught her magic. Yet more and more he found himself wanting her to tell him her thoughts and her reasons, her words curling about his fingers, and pulled him closer to her.

“I-It’s coming out of me,” she corrected herself, his little one insisting on being precise, even with herself. Water ran down her back, bubbles limply surrounding her in the bath. "Why Tom?" she pressed her knuckles against her trembling lip as if to keep herself from crying.

“Fuck,” Tom swore under his breath, the word tangy on his tongue.

Hermione heard, frowning at him. “Not supposed to say-“

“I know, poppet,” he interrupted, before drawing his arms back. He hadn’t told her about the changes, the ones that pureblood families longed to see occur in their daughters. They would be on the cusp of womanhood then; their magic yearning to be tied to another; their childhood betrothals then sealed with an Unbreakable Vow. It was a ruthless practice; one that the Ministry easily exploited, in a balance of political alliances and dynastic favors.

It was odd that he’d never thought of her along the same lines; his stomach churning at the thought of her with his mark on her arm, and a ring on her finger, as if she belonged to another. No matter her parentage, any pureblood family would long to have her, securing a foothold into the Ministry. Whether a pureblooded heir from England had her, or one from the Continent, she was a valuable doll.

Staunchly, he swallowed back the black bile that rose in his throat.

He knelt at the side of the bath, behind her, and had her see as he drew his sleeves up; as if she were a child again. Perhaps she would always be, to him; a forever child kept nestled against his side and kept within the manor, hidden away from the brutish world.

They were dreams, tantalizing, and foolish.

He wrapped his arms about her trembling shoulders and brushed his cool lips against her cheek. “Shh, pet,” he murmured, and let his weight rest against her back. “That’s it,” he cooed as she noisily exhaled through her mouth. It was effortless to be patient with her, patience he rarely showed the others around him. “Again, Hermione.”

She followed what he said: in-and-out-in-and-out, steadily coming to rest her head back against his soaked chest. He enveloped her in his hold; warming her damp body. He would draw her in a warm towel, and tuck her into his bed, he thought, and have Nagini sleep with her.

And himself, if she asked.

“This,” he skimmed his fingers down the curve of her knee, and between her thighs, before gently brushing his fingertips against her privates. She shuddered at the feeling and softly whimpered before drawing her legs together. He lifted his hand; showing her his open palm, and the watery, stain of blood on his fingers. He forced it to be nothing to him, as he knew it was everything to her, and their society. “This is normal, Hermione.” He searched for the words to say, and for a fleeting moment wished there was a book that he could read to her. She was keen for knowledge, his little bird, and was greedy for everything she could learn.

But her body - her body was a subject he hadn’t taught her, nor allowed her tutors to. He thought he had longer to draw her into the adult world, holding her trembling hand in his. She was a budding flower, eager to have her petals unfurl in the wind, and Tom wished to keep her from the sun.

Something he knew that wasn’t meant to be.

“It’s natural.”

Her fingers caught his wrist as if to still him from moving, her fingers hardly covering the width of his wrist. Her hold was nothing; he knew that he could easily break her own fingers if he wished, yet he stayed, as she wanted. "Like casting magic, Tom?" She asked and tipped her face towards his. Her burning eyes searched his as if she wanted confirmation of the truth.

He’d never told her a lie.

Not yet.

“Exactly like that,” he agreed, and she tangled her fingers about his.

“Tell me more,” she swallowed, and he watched her pretty throat contract, “about this.” They knew what she referred to, both watching as the water was turned a faint pink color; wisps of blood streaking from her legs. “Please, Tom.” She wasn't teasing but entreating him, and he felt his heart constrict in his chest. 

He whispered a spell, and the drain opened; water swirling down it. "You're in season," he said and rested his temple against her shoulder. She was warm and comforting beneath him, her skin slowly warming from the charm he’d cast. "Your magic is awakening, pet, as your body changes." He'd never comforted another; never_ wanted_ to.

‘Was this what it was?' He thought. ‘Was this comfort, as he told her how she was becoming a woman, and shedding the vestiges of childhood? That she could be wed and bred as if she were a beast-like Nagini?'

"But she isn't," Hermione said, her amateur Legilimency skills pleasantly surprising him, nuzzling her cheek against his collar. She focused on his scent; wisps of a smoking fire, cedar, and parchment paper caressing her senses. He made her feel safe, as he felt solid, and real beneath her cheek as if he would never part from her. "She's apart of our family, and that's not polite to say."

He chuckled at her scolding and gathered her in his arms; lifting her from the bath as if she were but a bird. Her heartbeat quickly in her chest, and her gangly limbs wrapped about him. "Should I apologize, pet?"

“Yes,” she nodded. “You should, Tom.”

"I will then," he said, as he reached for a teal colored towel, and wrapped it about his wriggling girl. He didn't let her feet touch the ground, as he wrapped another towel about her hair; and cradled her against him. He would hold her there forever, if she wished, as unchanging as the perpetual chill that seeped through the manor. She buried her head against his shoulder, careless of the water that’d seeped through his silk dress shirt.

“Thank you, Tom,” she murmured, and the ache in his chest tightened.

“Don’t thank me, little one,” he replied, meaning every word. She was different from the others, the ones that bore his mark on their forearms, and kissed the curve of his heel. She was different from them all, the only one that was his equal, and had a place beside him, instead of behind. “_You _never have to.”

He felt her smile against his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by NCUH! 🦝🖤


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: I'm going to go back through previous chapters, and make revisions/lengthen chapters. Thank you for all the wonderful feedback, the response to Curious Girl has been humbling! :) 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy a longer chapter than usual! 🖤🐍 If anyone wants to chat on Tumblr, please send me a message! ✨

“Turn for me, sweetie.”

  
  
Obediently, Hermione turned, facing the mirror.

  
  
She was having new robes made, the seamstress on her knees, near her feet; tucking here, and adjusting there. She hadn't brought a book with her, instead choosing to study her reflection in the floor-length mirror. She saw changes that hadn’t been there before; a highlight of pink on her cheeks, and a gentle curve to her chest. She couldn’t pretend that she’d grown taller, not in her stocking-laden feet and her curls relaxed. She hadn’t grown at all but -

  
  
Her finger traced her bottom lip, tugging it down.

  
  
The fitting felt different from the others, almost _special_. 

  
  
Hermione flicked her eyes upward. It wasn't like her to think that way; attaching sentiment to silly things like having robes made (like she'd asked Tom, "Why can't I order from a magazine?" after he'd let her buy some Muggle ones during a trip to London). The only part about being fitted that she enjoyed was seeing Constance, the friendly seamstress who made them for her. It was rare that others came to the manor, besides Theo when he stole away from Hogwarts to see her (or study for an exam, claiming that the Slytherin dorms were too loud - Hermione doubted that, though she liked to help him study anyway) or when Blaise or Draco came during a break. They were exuberant times, as they cast magic and played through the halls of the manor; though Hermione always chided them to study, inevitably helping them with their homework before they left.

  
  
Otherwise, she spent her days with Tom; studying magic, practicing theories, and waiting for owls to tap at her window. Theo was the best about owling her, Blaise second, and Draco the worst (though he always included a box of sugar quills or treats from Honeydukes with). Since she’d come into season, she’d spent nearly every moment tucked against Tom’s side, whether they were reading books, and she laid with her head in his lap, or while he handled petitions and she perched on his lap and he rested his chin on top of her head. He’d let her sleep with him every night while she held the heated water bottle against her cramping pelvis, and he crooned to her in parseltongue, as if she were a young child again. He’d had Winky bring her soft pads of cotton to line her knickers with, along with a steaming cup of Earl Gray, and dark chocolate to enjoy afterward.

  
  
Winky was the one she saw the most of, besides Tom, and then there was Professor Snape when he came to teach her potions. He taught her twice a week, coming through the Floo after he finished with his classes at Hogwarts. She’d made it her goal to make the withdrawn potions master smile, and had achieved it once (when she’d brewed Polyjuice, intending to surprise him as Tom, but used a hair from Crookshanks instead. She’d alerted him with her frantic meows, and swishing tail, and he’d almost - _almost_ laughed, instead quirking his lips, and looking as if it pained him, before stalking off to brew an antidote). Otherwise, he was somber and gruff, but never rude as her friends claimed he was at Hogwarts.

  
  
“What is this chord for?” Hermione asked, fingering the dusty pink chord that fastened her robes closed. At the woman’s questioning look, she hastened to add: “They’re normally black, but it’s different now. What does it mean?”

  
  
“Ah!” Constance smiled and clapped her hands together. Her little client had never asked questions about her work before, and she wasn’t going to miss her chance to explain. “See how mine is red?” Hermione nodded; her honeyed eyes wide. She did like to learn new things, even if it _was_ about fashion. “A cord reflects a young witch’s life; the major events, and achievements one may have,” she ticked them off on her fingers. “Childhood is represented by white; coming into season, pink; while your marriage cords are chosen by your husband.”

  
  
“I married a Gryffindor,” Constance said proudly. “So, I wear his house colors, as most choose to do," she tweaked the hem of the girl's new robes while continuing her explanation. Seeing as her husband had been a prefect, she didn’t mind the choice. "Though your husband may choose another color, one he thinks most flattering to you. Every shade has a meaning, and a cord may have two, or even three spliced into it.” Husbands could ward the cords too; often enchanting them for fidelity, fertility, or submissiveness (though she’d heard that the notorious Lady Zabini still wore the cord from her first husband; a cord rumored to make her _particularly _open with her sexuality, and encouraged her dominant nature).

  
  
That, Constance left out, instead cooing about how well the robes fit the girl, before adding; "A cord may symbolize the heirs that a woman has too, not in the color but in the way its fastened and its button." Cords that lay straight across, knotting over a simple button were the way most cords laid; but changed after a woman had children. Heirs were celebrated with the cord wrapped twice about the button, while the button itself was replaced by something more ornate. Constance knew of one husband who replaced the button with a golden bee, after his wife had given him a son, due to her unusual love for beekeeping (an odd practice, he’d sniffed, but accepted after she’d made him deliriously happy with a son; thus exempting his brother from the family inheritance). Another husband had a button made from phoenix tears, while others resorted to family crests or silver engravings.

  
  
If a daughter was the first-born, the knot was wound three times about the button; one that remained black, unless the wife was in close favor with her husband. Constance clucked her tongue. Her own cord was knotted thrice, yet her button was made from a flawless pearl; one that had been passed down through her husband’s family. “I’m sure that whoever you marry will adore you,” Constance noted, watching the furrow of the girl’s brow in the mirror. “The Minister wouldn’t allow anything else.”

  
  
Or_ anyone_ else, but himself, if rumors were to be believed.

  
  
Skeeter had slyly suggested (using a bit of math) that his ward would have come into season, and wasn’t it a _pity_ that she was motherless still? Constance had put little thought into the rumors, though she did admit the Minister had never been seen in the papers or even rumored to be, with someone, despite his frequent appearances at galas, and wizarding celebrations. More often than not he came with his favorites; Malfoy, Dolohov, Rowle, and the recently forgiven Nott, among others. They were perfectly bred and exceptionally polite; but entirely the wrong gender (there had never been a wisp of a rumor that the Minister favored men; not even at his days at Hogwarts). Not that she minded, she wasn’t nearly as close-minded as that puritan, Kingsley. 

  
  
“I’d have to take my N.E.W.T.S. first,” Hermione said seriously. “I’m not nearly old enough, but Tom promised that nothing will happen until after.” She pulled at her sleeve and reminded Constance of how young she was, despite how intense she could be.

  
  
Hermione was a pretty girl, once her wild curls had been tamed, Constance thought, and courteous too. Nothing she’d expected from the Minister’s ward, and she was pleasantly surprised by each visit when nothing went as she thought it would. She knew when an elegant, snowy owl waited at her window, with a calling card held between its beak and its eyes narrowed in an arrogant glare, who was calling her (the Minister, as she exclaimed to her brother, Stephen) and where (his manor, as she always added, reveling with pleasure at the words).

  
  
Oh, Constance was used to dressing purebred girls, most of whom came to her shop in Diagon Alley. The bells chimed when clients entered, if her pygmy puff, Willow, didn’t alert her first by shoving mountains of fabric on to the floor; all in a mad dash to leap into the visitors’ view of sight. (Willow’s exuberance had _nothing_ to do with the jar of treats on the counter; one made of sturdy plastic, and an even sturdier, locked lid that required the tap of a wand to open. _Nothing_.)

  
  
The walls of her shop were covered with shelves holding bolts of fabric; the selection filled with nearly every color and print imaginable. There were further shelves filled with trimmings; lace and buttons and cords and even a fine selection of thread that was charmed to shimmer, and others to glitter. (Yes, Constance was proud of the rhyming advertisement!). With the use of an extension charm, there was room for a floral chaise and a low table where mothers and chaperones could take their tea, while the youngest client was whisked to the fitting rooms.

  
  
Wielding a fabric tape measure, and holding pins in her mouth, Constance would fit them for new robes; all while making suggestions for cuts, and tucks and the latest craze of the season. Clients knew that the seamstress wouldn’t steer them wrong, nor be indiscreet; as she kept Skeeter silenced with a threat not to dress her if she wrote what she overheard or stalked the others for information.

  
  
In-love with her creations, Skeeter complied. 

  
  
She retained an enormous list of clients, many of whom stayed with her for years; their mothers taking them to her for their childhood robes, and they stayed with her for their adult robes; trusting her to create pretty, fetching numbers for their wedding day, and when they were expecting. They found innovation in her hands; as she tailored elegant, simple robes with a whimsical note. Compiling a flair of bright color along the collar, an embroidered pattern when their robes were opened (most women choosing their husband's family motto or their Patronus), or one of her favored creations; _matching lacy knickers. _Her clients had been terribly pleased with them and flooded her shop with orders.

  
  
“Do boys have them too? Cords that mean something?” The girl asked, interrupting her thoughts. “I’ve never seen Theo’s cord change.” 

  
  
Constance clucked her tongue, shaking her head, “Their robes may have cords as fasteners, but you’ll find the meaning behind theirs lacking, unlike ours.” Her tone was light as she rested back on her knees, and critically swept her gaze over the girl’s new robes. She had her wand ready to make changes; never accepting anything less than perfection. “One of the most important things a witch has are her cords,” she added. “They keep them forever, normally in a memento box, or given to their suitor if his pledge is accepted.”

  
  
It wasn’t unheard of for pureblood families to display cords from their heirs’ betrothed, especially when the contract was finalized upon her coming into season. They would pointedly display the white cord afterward, joining the pink cord with it after their son was married; or sent the cords off to Gringotts encased in a velvet bag, trusting the goblins to guard them with the familial wealth.

  
  
“Oh,” Hermione nibbled on her bottom lip. “May I have my white one?”

  
  
Constance had set it reverently aside, having taken it from her previous, favored set of robes before measuring her for a new set. Normally a mother waited by her daughter’s side for the changing of cords; having a silk bag, or cedar box to hold it in. “The Minister didn’t say,” she hesitated. She’d brought along a velvet bag, one she’d thought to tuck the cord into, before personally delivering to the Minister. He hadn’t expressly said his wishes about the cord, only writing in his note that he wished for his ward to have a new set of robes, and a furred traveling cloak made.

  
  
Truthfully, the Minister and his ward were her easiest, yet most difficult clients; their wishes leaving nearly everything up to her interpretation. She'd tried, at first, to dress Hermione as she might another young witch. She'd selected soft pastels for her retiring robes, and bolder robes for outings. They'd all had long sleeves and a hem that ended just below her ankle. They'd quickly been returned with an apologetic note from Hermione, that she was always pushing back her sleeves to read and had tripped after running outside after Crookshanks. Accompanying the note had been another, one written in an elegant, scrawled hand with a suggestion to see -

  
  
_my ward as herself_, _not someone else_.

  
  
Her sleeves were rapidly changed to stay at her wrists, never falling past her fingers, allowing her to read as she wished. Her robes too were adjusted, their hem ending just past her knees. Hermione had been terribly grateful, and Constance had decided to try harder than before; seeing Hermione not as a pureblooded child, but as the Minister tactfully suggested, _herself_. She had an understated elegance, a precociousness that Constance chose to focus on; making her outfits fitted, and with simple sophistication.

  
  
The patterns changed too, as Constance fashioned her robes in Slytherin house colors; using fine silver fabric, accentuated with touches of green and wisps of gold or delicate cream. She’d made Hermione sets of robes that were navy and cream too, embroidered with golden fabric, and often edged her sleeves with lace, dyed to match. Hermione took little interest in the robes she wore; though she adored the embroidery of her familiar, Crookshanks, that decorated the underside of her robes. They were different with every set; one showing Crookshanks in response, another with a butterfly on his nose, or paw in hand with a house-elf. When Hermione had thrown her arms about Constance 's neck and said thank you; she'd made sure to pay incessant attention to the embroidered familiar, even charming him to move on one set, often choosing to curl about Hermione's collar, or chase his tail about her sleeve.

  
  
“Please?” Hermione smiled, her teeth peeping out. “I want to give them to Tom anyway; he’ll be pleased.”

  
  
“Not Theo?” Constance teased, chuckling at the girl’s brightened cheeks. While Hermione often read a book during fittings, she also chatted plenty about her friends; namely Theodore Nott, and Draco Malfoy. (Constance knew the latter from his mother, Narcissa, who frequently sent her what she wanted to be made by one, haughty owl).

  
  
Hermione’s nose wrinkled. “No, Theo wouldn’t know what to do with them! Blaise would tease me mercilessly about them, and Draco,” she rolled her eyes. “He would throw them over to a house-elf to burn.”

  
  
Constance doubted any of them would, every pureblood instructed in cords since birth (if they were worth their good breeding). They were a significant key to betrothal, and familial negotiations; and an important indicator in a witch’s status, even how favored she was by her husband’s family.

  
  
“I suppose that you may,” she began cautiously. “Since you’re giving them to the Minister- “

  
She still couldn't bring herself to say, Tom, despite Hermione's free use of his name. It just didn't feel right, as she'd tried before to curve her lips about his first name, inevitably saying "Minister" or "Minister Riddle" instead. Hermione, however, Constance always called by her name; just as she encouraged her to call her by her first.

  
  
Constance waved her wand, and the cords floated over to Hermione’s outstretched hand, where she reverently held them against her palm. “Thank you, Constance,” Hermione said, with a cheerfulness that brightened her features.

  
  
And just as with every visit, Constance was glad that she came.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by NCUH! 🦝🖤


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 10/26/2019! Originally posted on September 19th, 2019. 
> 
> I'm working my way through all the chapters I have uploaded for Curious Girl, editing, and expanding the content. I hope that everyone enjoys the updated chapters, as well as the new content, here and there! Thank you all for being so sweet, and kind to me - your comments on my author's note about depression made me realize that I'm not alone, as I sometimes feel. 
> 
> Hugs to you all!! 
> 
> PS: You can thank Seanymphe for inspiring me; she answered an ask on Tumblr about headcanon ideas for Tomione. The idea of Tom resting his head in Hermione's lap was too sweet to resist. 🖤

“How was your outing, pet?”

She twisted his dark curls about her fingers and watched intently, as she let them go. His wavy curls were small and relaxed, not unlike hers after he’d tended to them. “Blaise was nice,” she replied simply.

"Mhm,” Tom said knowingly. “He was a swot.”

Hermione giggled, the word swot, one she rarely heard from Tom. “He’s better than Draco,” she admitted, “but he kept at my side, no matter _where_ we went. It was as if he thought a werewolf would come bounding down Diagon Alley, or something. ”

She huffed, her honey-colored eyes flashing with annoyance. Tom had let her see Blaise and Draco over the weekend when they went to Hogsmeade; a reward for her passing her Charms test. Theo hadn’t been able to go; instead called to see his father after failing an exam (the trio shuddered, knowing how the elder Nott tended to spit when he talked; an unfortunate quality considering his proclivity to ramble). 

  
  
Draco had insisted on having an audience while he had new robes and an outfit for Quidditch tailored, before taking them to Honeydukes afterward. Hermione bought sugar quills for her and Tom, while Draco had filled basket after basket with an assortment of candy. She’d chided that he was going to ruin his teeth, and he’d given her a bag of chocolate frogs in response (“So you can ruin your teeth with me, Riddle!”).  
  
  
Blaise was different than Draco, less exuberant and snarky; while more observant and playful than Theo was. He’d selected a bag full of jellybeans for himself; magic ones that promised an array of surprising flavors that would either delight the taste buds or electrify them with disgust. He’d leaned over her shoulder and whispered that he was going to give them to Pansy Parkinson, as a gift for Draco. She'd smirked in response before she'd found later that he'd slipped a bag of them in her robe’s pocket too.

She’d reluctantly kept them; trying one, and giggling at the sweet, tart taste that fizzled over her tongue, before scowling at a sour one that made her nose wrinkle in distaste. She owl’d the rest to Theo, noting their mixed taste, not wanting _him_ to have a nasty surprise. She was always close to Theo, the two rarely had a disagreement with each other, and she wanted to keep it that way (at least, for now). 

After the candy store, she’d insisted on going to Flourish and Blotts, ignoring Draco as he’d clutched at his stomach and groaned in mock pain, knowing how long she’d take. She’d rolled her eyes and felt him following her anyway; though he hadn’t spent long in the store, before slipping off to find a new pair of Quidditch gloves. Blaise had stayed at her side; reaching for books above her head and pointing out new releases that she’d missed.

“I didn’t know you read,” she’d said, as solemnly as only she could be. Only the flick of her gaze, with amusement tainting her irises, let her friend know she was teasing, in her caustic way. 

Did he have to cling at her side? Theo never did, letting her go off by herself in the same store; knowing how she liked to skim through books, inevitably taking one with her to read in the corner of the store; passing oodles of time until he came to collect her. If she went with Draco, he would leave her by herself, before coming to tease her by tugging at her curls and leaning over her shoulder; asking questions about what she was reading, and refusing to be ignored.  
  
  
But Blaise was different, she learned. He wanted her company, overwhelmingly so; as he brushed his arm against hers, watched as she opened tomes, and reverently traced her fingers over their illustrated pages.

He hadn’t stayed with her before, not for very long, and she briefly wondered if he’d noticed her adult cord. As soon as the thought came, she went to dismiss it, though she found in her logical way, it had possible truth to it. He never had a hair out of place, or his tie askew, and could make even Draco look plain beside him, in his elegantly tailored robes. He favored darker, understated colors, and Hermione knew he charmed his layered clothing with spells he'd stolen from the house-elves.

“Ah _cara_,” he smiled, his pretty teeth exposed. “There are many things you don't know about me.”

“Do I want to?” She replied, fingering the gold leaf spine of a Potions tome. Snape had tersely let her know that Draco was surpassing her in Potions; scoring higher on the last exam than she had, by three points. It was the first time he had, and she frowned at the thought. If and when Snape told him, she was never going to hear the end of it.

“I believe you do,” Blaise said softly. “You’ll never find me saying I’m late for an important date.” He’d chuckled as she looked at him, her eyes wide as he quoted Alice in Wonderland to her, a classic Muggle tale. The very one that she’d written to Theo about in her latest letter, as she chided him for replying late to her last owl.

“How- “

It was the one question you never asked a Slytherin, not if you wanted an honest answer. There was a never-ending network between families, their knowledge numerous, and shared in gleaming tells, and subtle notes. There were no safe secrets; the mice that scurried along the corridors of every manor, and the spiders that spun cobwebs in every dormitory having eyes and ears, for their owner. It was something Hermione knew little of, the Riddle manor more a home than anyone knew.

He tapped her on the nose, his smile widening at her indignant scowl. “Slytherin.”

She hadn’t said anything more, instead turning on her heel, and stomped through the crowded aisles. She felt disconcerted at her secrets with Theo being shared, and how Blaise was still following her. That was until she stopped and looked at the towering display of black diaries. They seemed curiously Muggle, and she'd never seen them before, not at Flourish and Blotts or in the private catalog they sent to her. 

“Mhm,” Blaise reached for one; a dark gray diary that illuminated black, silken letters on the cover, B.Z. “Pretty things, aren’t they? We’re all crazed for them," he set the diary back, and it turned to look like the others, without his initials or pretty slate color.

Hermione cocked her head, studying the assortment. “They’re charmed?”

“Of course. They change according to their owner’s tastes," Blaise explained, noting the furrow of his friend's brow. He could hear the cogs turning in her mind and hid his amusement at her seriousness. He knew, without her ever saying, how she had a continual ache to learn, wanting to know everything about the world around them; wizard or muggle. Her interest in muggle things was something he kept closely to himself, having gleaned it from her letters to Theo.  
  
  
"Draco’s is positively garish in its Quidditch colors and golden snitches that flutter across the cover,” he snickered, choosing not to add that Draco frequently wrote about Hermione, despite how Pansy fluttered about him, and sat next to him in the Great Hall, sharing her dessert with him, doubtless on instruction from her mother. The elder Parkinson was haughtier than any purebred he’d ever known, save Lucius Malfoy, and he shuddered at the thought of having her as _his_ mother-in-law. She was seemingly immune to his charms, leveling him with a frosty glare when he’d kissed her knuckles, and asked after her health.  
  
  
No, Blaise thought, he didn’t rival the man who became Pansy’s husband at all. He doubted even Draco could charm the old bat, as unfortunate as Draco had been with making McGonagall warm up to him. The head of Gryffindor was never afraid of Draco or his father, regularly taking house points from him for ‘caddish’ behavior, and had taken him by the ear before Dumbledore after she'd found him taunting a group of younger, muggle-born students. She'd made him write in his journal as punishment, though Blaise doubted the teacher knew how Draco _liked _the punishment (and his journal too).

“Blaise -“  
  
  
“Hermione,” he teased, knowing what she had in mind to say. Hermione didn’t doubt that he’d seen it and nipped at her lip to keep herself from saying that it was private. She wouldn’t go through it, the same as she wouldn’t read someone’s letters. She wouldn’t.

Tentatively she held one of the diaries in her hand, watching as it changed to a pretty, navy color with a golden Crookshanks embroidered at the corner. In the middle of the cover “H.J.R.” stood in bold letters, and she brushed her fingers across them.

“Do you have any questions, dear?” A shop keeper appeared at their side; a handsome older woman wearing billowing robes. She was one Hermione hadn’t seen before, as familiar as she was with the workers at her favorite store. “Would you like one for your friend too?”

Hermione shook her head, not adding that Blaise wasn’t a friend of hers (at least not when she was annoyed with him, though she let him tuck her hand against his side). Blaise had answered for her, saying that he would buy the diary for her. And he had, even paying extra for it to be gift wrapped in a velvet bag and placed his galleons on the counter while deftly ignoring her protests. “My allowance is larger than yours,” he told her simply, ignoring the annoyance and gratitude flickering across her features.

Tom gave her a modest allowance, one that she was mindful of, but freely spent at Flourish and Blotts. She decided she would send Blaise something later, as a thank you; some dried herbs from her and Winky’s garden that he could use in Potions, or a pair of knitted socks. (From what Theo had told her, the Slytherin dorms never felt warm, no matter how many heating charms one used.)  
  
  
Their outing had ended after a meal of chips and fish, along with a cup of pumpkin juice. It was tangy on Hermione's tongue, and her friends had laughed at the orange mustache it left behind. Afterward, Blaise and Draco had left by Floo, while Winky had arrived to _Apparate_ home with Hermione, explaining that Tom had been called to a meeting. She’d waited for him in the study, reading one of her new tomes, until he’d come home.

“He did get me something,” Hermione said, chewing on her bottom lip. Her hand rested on Tom’s side, while the other still combed through his hair; his curls silkier, and more relaxed than hers were. Tom really was pretty, she thought, with his porcelain skin and aristocratic features. She didn't tell him her thoughts; not when he'd shushed her before when she'd told him his smile was one of her favorite things (alongside Crookshanks laying on her lap and purring, or when she made a potion, and Snape didn’t chide her for it.

“Did he?” His tone was mild, as he flicked his fingers, and the fireplace roared with warm, crackling flames. Snow fell outside; the windows of the sitting room covered in frost. She liked to trace symbols and lines with her finger, Winky joining with her (though the elf often chided her that they were going to leave streaks on the window - still she'd giggled when Hermione drew Nagini in a dress and Crookshanks with a cape and crown on).

A thick, woolen blanket wrapped around her shoulders and another was spread over her legs. Tom was seemingly impervious to the cold; resting his head in her lap without comment. Hermione wondered if he'd become that way after years spent in the Slytherin dorms. Her own bedroom had warming charms cast over everything, while his only had a charm on his sheets (though she still cuddled against his side like a cloying child). The manor was always cold, the temperature unchanging no matter the season.

“_Accio _Diary!" She called, and the slim book flew from its velvet bag, and into her hand. "They're popular at Hogwarts," she explained and felt her cheeks flush as Tom took it from her. She was glad then, that she hadn't gotten him one too, doubting that he'd like it. He often wrote letters, his hand on her neck or the small of her back, while his dominant hand filled reams of parchment paper with his writing. Owls frequently flew from the manor to other places, the sight of their graceful wings, and soft coos delighting her as a child, watching them from an upstairs window. "Do you think it's silly? Draco has one too, and Blaise, I think but- "

He was silent a moment, before looking up at her. His dark eyes were solemn as he smiled, one that didn’t quite touch his eyes. “I had one, once.”

“Oh- “ she blinked. “You had time to write as Head Boy?”

He chuckled at her question, and she gave a cheeky smile

These were some of her favorite moments, she thought when her guardian laid with his head in her lap and chatted with her about everything and nothing. They discussed magical theory and practical spells; Tom quizzing her about the tomes she'd read, what Snape was teaching her, she asked him about his work at the Ministry, and whether Nagini had teased Crooks or vice versa.

There were times, rare but still, when Tom told her about his days at Hogwarts; how he'd charmed his way into the Restricted Section, studied everything he could, and how he'd used Slughorn's stores behind his back. He'd told her too, about becoming a prefect and ending his years as Head Boy, where he'd given Dumbledore's favorite students loss of house points for the simplest (and _honest_) of reasons.

"Amazingly I did," he replied, and set the diary aside, before cupping her cheek in his hand. She nuzzled her cheek against his fingers and sighed at the warm feeling. "It was my confidant at Hogwarts before I realized how foolish it was to leave my thoughts written down," he hummed at a long-lost memory. "I charmed it to appear as if it was filled with notes on potions; staid and dull thoughts that were of little consequence." He wrapped her curls about his finger and tugged them sharply. “No one bothered to look past the first page after that.”

“But?” She asked, knowing there was something more he wanted to say.

“Keep your thoughts close to you, Hermione,” he murmured. “The truth is a dangerous thing, pet. Draco, Blaise, Theo - they’re your friends,” his lips curled about the word. “But, would use it against you as soon as it was convenient for them.”

“I wouldn’t,” she protested. “I never would.”

“You wouldn’t, would you, pet?” His voice was soft as his hand dropped to her collar, his fingers tracing her exposed collarbone. Her skin was untainted by the sun, beautifully pale and dusted with freckles. She was so small compared to him, her body lithe and nimble, and her heart stronger than anyone around them. “Others would. Others _will_.”

She hesitated, tracing her bottom lip with her tongue. He watched the movement; his dark eyes burning. "Would you, Tom?" She asked and felt her heart flutter in her chest. She wasn't sure, as her toes curled against the settee and her stomach did a funny-flip flop if she wanted to know.

“You know that I would, Hermione.”

His tone held something in it that when she was older and remembered his words, she recognized as regret. She hadn’t understood then, her brow knitting in confusion, though she knew better than to ask what he meant. He would think her a child, like the ones that begged to see the Minister, as they toured the Ministry and clutched their brightly colored passes to their chest.

Hermione huffed, before shaking her head. "I'm not afraid of you, Tom." She would never be; not when he crooned to her in parseltongue and let her sit on his lap while he read her Muggle stories. She treasured, too, the time when she’d been sick in bed with a fever, and he’d left the Ministry to sit at her bedside; and spoon-fed her a potion that Snape had made. He was her friend, her best friend, and her family.

As his hand went back to his side, she moved hers to cradle his cheeks. "I'll never be afraid of you," she said, and steadily held his gaze.  
  
  
She meant the words, as they lay heavy on her tongue, and somehow, she knew she would always mean them. "You're my best friend." He didn't disregard her words, as he sometimes did at the word _friend_ as if it were something filthy, and inconsequential. Instead, he met her gaze, briefly, before looking away. 

“Fortunate then,” he said lightly, “as I have no plans of letting you go.”

She didn't ask where she would go, (Hogwarts?), but kept herself from asking.  
  
  
She held his face in her hands still, running circles over his cheeks with her thumbs, before slowly, letting his face go. He didn’t move away from her, no, he moved closer still; resting his head against her knee, as if he were a child.  
  
  
Tom could be the same as Crooks, she thought, as eager for warmth and needing a nap after a long day. He'd been working long hours at the Ministry, and held meetings in the manor; that she was firmly kept from, Winky keeping her busy with cups of tea and new books to read, along with Snape staying longer in the evenings, where he occupied her with brewing potions and helping him fill his stores.

“Sleep, Tom,” she said in the same bossy tone that she used with Crooks. She felt more grown-up than before; despite having to stand on the tips of her toes, and Tom still looking down at her when they talked. He'd wrap his arms about her waist, or her shoulders before picking her up, and she'd bury her head against his shoulder; as they chatted about their day, and he took her to bed. They were becoming equals, she thought, though she had years to go before she was Tom’s age. “I’ll stay - I’ll keep you safe.”

He chuckled wryly; an earnest sound compared to before. “I have no doubt that you will, Hermione.”

He sometimes compared her to her familiar, kneazles known for their unmoving loyalty, and mop of thick fur. Kneazles were particular about who they bonded with; and once they had, they were never far from that person’s side, or their thoughts. Hermione knew it was the truth; her bond with Crookshanks, though half-kneazle, the same as what Tom said. Something fluttered in her chest; a tentative thump-thump-thump of her heart.

He closed his eyes then, and drifted to sleep, while Hermione watched the crackling flames, and rested her hand on the curve of his neck. "I promise," she said softly, and she thought she heard a voice in her thoughts, replying, ‘_I know_’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by NCUH! 🦝🖤


	8. VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration can be an odd thing ...
> 
> Originally I planned for a Draco/Hermione scene, leading to confused feelings with Tom, and a chaste kiss in comparison. I read through all of your lovely comments, and your votes/ideas and tried so, so hard to write it. My inspiration took an absolute nosedive, and didn't return until I was replying to a comment on an earlier chapter, and started typing out a crack! fic like idea. 
> 
> ...Then I realized I loved it, and wanted to work with it here. :) If you want to see what will happen in the next chapter, take a peek at some earlier comments, and you just might find out. 
> 
> The next chapter *will* be in Tom's POV, and it'll be uploaded before Monday. I know this chapter may not be what everyone was expecting, and I hope no one is _too_ disappointed. I promise the next chapter will feature a gentle tomione scene. 💗🐍
> 
> And later? There just might be a bit of Draco, and Blaise. :) 
> 
> Thank you everyone for sticking with Curious Girl, and leaving such wonderful comments and suggestions behind. I read every comment, and try to reply to them all too. They truly mean the world to me! 😊

“Sir - _sir,_” Tom’s writing stilled as he set his quill aside, the parchment beneath his wrist covered in wet ink. He glanced upward, seeing the flushed, scarlet cheeks that matched the color of his secretary’s shocking hair.

  
  
“Yes?”

  
  
“There’s- “, his secretary, Percy, pulled at his tie; a nervous tic that Tom was familiar with. “There’s been an incident, Riddle, with- ”

  
  
Percy had worked for him for over a decade, never changing from his days as a head boy. He was exact and his organization precise, his pride resulting from there never being a document out of place, or an overdue report. His head boy pin was fixed to the underside of his collar, yet he'd shed his Gryffindor robes for subdued ministry ones as soon as he'd graduated and passed his N.E.W.T.s.

  
  
It’d been his dream to work in the Ministry, ever since he’d accompanied his father to his small office. He'd been fascinated by seeing his reflection on the marble tiles, his mind wandering listening to his father prattled on about muggle inventions while looking about the historical place. _What had the walls seen? What had they heard?_ He'd run his fingers over the wooden pane and wondered who'd touched it before, something that his father had understood after he'd seen the look of wonder in his son's eyes. There'd been no other place he wanted to be, nowhere he felt that he belonged.

  
  
He still kept his acceptance letter framed and displayed on the mantle of his flat, one of the few personal items he had displayed. On the whole, his flat was largely a place for him to sleep, and ready for his workday, though he had other co-workers over on occasion, and cared for his familiar, a pretty Siamese named Oracle. She enjoyed accompanying him to work, where she’d curl up beneath his desk, or play with a crumpled piece of paper. He was known amongst the most dedicated ministry workers for his workaholic tendencies, something he acknowledged without shame; spending some nights sleeping at his desk (despite the impropriety of it all) with Oracle at his feet, while he awaited urgent owls or late requests from the Minister. He was different than the other Weasleys, not as warm or welcoming as his siblings, or familial as they were.

  
  
He’d interned briefly for Kingsley but changed his tune when he’d been invited to join the Riddle team. It was an indisputable point of pride for Percy to declare that he worked for the Minister, talking to him in the morning, and before he Flooed from the office every night, if not repeatedly throughout the day. There was never anything the Minister needed that he didn’t provide, including keeping visitors barred from his office, and keeping his tea under stasis. He took his duties as secretary seriously, having seized the position as soon as it was offered. He’d spent just three years as an undersecretary before the man had retired, and he'd made the position his own.

  
  
His support for the Minister had fractured his relationship with his family, the Weasleys supporting the departing Kingsley. Nor did they support the Minister in adopting a ward, Molly never regretful for the howler she’d sent him (and that Percy had never stopped feeling appalled by). Needless to say, their relationship was cool, and Percy’s visits to the Burrow few. Percy proclaimed to the others (the few that listened) that the Ministry was his home; and the others that eavesdropped believed it. His desk outside the Minister’s door was unchanging; his thin, suited frame an ever-familiar sight.

  
  
Not that anyone really _wanted_ to see Percy, his brisk walk and loud footsteps giving others plenty of warning to scatter the halls, and bury themselves in paperwork, something that as secretary, Percy would always respect. Oh, he would hold the door for another, and say a kind word here and there, but everyone knew he respected those who obsessed over their job as he did and had a flawless record. There was a campaign that surfaced about the Ministry offices to find Percy a girlfriend, the thick campaign folder filled with required traits for his potential partner. She’d need to have scored in the top tier for her O.W.L.s. and her N.E.W.T.s., carrying around a bag filled with more books and papers than she weighed, have little sense of humor and consult her work before she had sex with Percy, in case she suffered an injury. There was a debate about her House, one commenter writing that Gryffindor was required, while another had crossed it out and said Ravenclaw would make more sense (though she couldn’t intimidate him with her intelligence). Percy had destroyed the folder quickly, though for months afterward, he found campaign posters, and notices slipped into bits of parchment (inevitably the ones that he was working on).

  
  
He was a proud workaholic, serving the Minister as he would no other. Really, he had no interest in serving anyone else; as Kingsley’s requests for his service were left ignored, the former minister working in the private sector. Percy would never leave the Ministry, nor would he leave Tom, as he’d said often enough to his family. His very letters were fixed with the Ministry’s address, even his messenger owl baring a gold collar with the seal of the Ministry on it, and he wore his gold watch (one the Minister had given him after working there the first year) without ever considering taking it off.

  
  
“An incident between- “

  
  
One fine eyebrow arched. “Between whom, Percy?”

  
  
“Your ward, Hermione,” Percy said, his lips stiff about her name. Though he’d lambasted his mother privately, as well as in the press, for her opinions on the Minister’s decision to adopt a ward, he had his own thoughts on the matter. He failed to understand why the Minister had adopted a muggle-born, despite the publicized account comparing her time spent in an orphanage to the Ministers. Surely, Percy had thought, he could have found another orphan, one that had a suitable background, a half-blood or bastard pureblood at best. “She encountered Fred in the halls- “

  
  
“What happened?” Tom’s voice was wonderfully quiet, as he looked up at Percy. His eyes were glimmering and cold; as dark as the coals that burned in the fireplace. It was a look that Percy had only seen once before when he'd entered his office while holding a mountain of paperwork and tripped over his familiar, Nagini. Tom had watched him with hideously cold eyes, while his familiar had wrapped herself about his leg, steadily climbing up to his thigh as if she knew of his fear. Neither missed the way that Percy swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing then, as it had before. “Has she been hurt?”

  
  
“He - he kissed her, sir,” Percy tucked his shaking hands behind his back. “I’m sure it was a joke, there must have been a punchline to it.” One that he wouldn’t understand, nor would he try to explain to the Minister, until later when he wrote an official report of the matter. “There was a burst of accidental magic, and the chandelier shattered above them." He didn't add that it'd wounded his brother, cutting his legs through his formal robes and that he’d insisted the med-witch tend to him, before even turning to the Minister’s frightened ward.

  
  
Percy had heard rumors, of course, that the Minister insisted on teaching his ward magic, among his lessons expanding on topics that weren’t even broached at Hogwarts before sixth or seventh year, and had helped her dabble in wandless magic. He’d smothered the rumors as best as he could, knowing how purebloods kept gossip amongst themselves, but still had wanted their silence in the first place. He hadn’t known what to think, privately sneering at the thought the muggle-born could cast wandless magic when even he struggled with it.

  
  
He’d never taken to the solemn little girl, not when she always had her nose in a book, something he could appreciate if she hadn’t insisted on telling him what she learned. She was filled with questions, always searching for answers, and hungry for knowledge, and fixed him with her attention until he squirmed. If she were a mere pureblood child, he would have dismissed her, but as the Minister's ward, he was forced to entertain her on occasion. He never let himself smile when she brought him a cup of tea from the dining hall, knowing how he took it straight, or when she’d told him that his organizing system was sensible. He never wanted to encourage her, nor give her the idea that she was encouraged to take up his time. He was formal, and he was cordial, but he wasn’t her friend or her substitution for a brother. He was the Secretary to her guardian, and he never wanted her to forget that her guardian, was the Minister.

  
  
No, Percy said nothing, instead chewing on the inside of his cheek; as he felt he’d made a terrible mistake. He’d ushered Hermione into an empty meeting room, before he’d come rushing to the Minister’s door, and hadn’t even left her with a kerchief for her tears, or ordered one of the lesser secretaries to make her a cup of tea. He hadn’t given her another thought at all, his thoughts shifting to telling the Minister about the matter, immediately.

  
  
Yes, he thought, watching the Minister stiffen. He’d made a_ terrible_ mistake.

  
  
“I see.” Tom slid his chair backward, before standing. He looked every inch the Minister that he was; his dark robes clinging to his elegant form. He was taller than Percy by several inches, his broad shoulders seeming to add to his height. And while Percy had exuberantly bright hair, with strands of gray gathering at the temple, Tom looked the same as his portrait that hung at the entrance of the Ministry; his dark eyes, and relaxed curls the same still. He’d hardly seemed to age at all, his slow smile reminiscent of his early public appearances, shown in the newspapers.

  
  
“I suppose the newest motion will have to wait. Please tell Gringotts their vaults will stay closed, until next week." He smiled a thin-lipped motion, and Percy nodded his head, protests dying on his lips. Percy ached to scratch his wrist and knew that his anxiety was rising.

  
  
The goblins were already upset about recent negotiations, and the Ministry had gone into an uproar with a flurry of owls tapping at the windows, and flapping their wings, demanding to be let in. They all had letters from various investors and well-connected purebloods who had heard of the upset with Gringotts and worried about their funds. Percy had made a standard form to send in return, reassuring them that the Ministry would soothe the matter over. If the Minister pushed it to the next week, he couldn’t imagine the further uproar. If the news was released to the public -

  
  
“Tell me, Percy, where is my ward now?” Tom paused, his shoulder brushing against Percy’s. The secretary kept himself from flinching, his fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms. “Where is Hermione?”

  
  
He said the name in the way Percy had said his old familiar’s name, a weathered tortoise that had never left his side. He’d said the name as if she was something sacred, and precious. He said the name as if she mattered.

  
  
Percy didn’t understand, not the reason why.

  
  
“In the west meeting room, sir.”

  
  
“Of course,” his voice was cool as he made for the door, his pace unhurried. The Minister never hurried, never took a step out of bounds. The Ministry could be falling apart about his ears, and he would walk with his head held high, and his steps unhurried as they always were, as if he were as steady as a looming clock in London. “She wouldn’t have come to my office, would she? She’s a considerate witch,” he paused, his tone low. “And your brother?”

  
  
“With the med-witch,” Percy replied, his voice dropping. The room felt claustrophobic as if there wasn't room enough for both of them and the words that stretched between them. “He came to tour the Ministry, sir, as he’ll take his N.E.W.T.s. in a few years and- “

  
  
He’d been close to the twins for a time, his brother Charlie free-spirited where he was traditional, and Bill wrapped up in dallying with Fleur. The rest of his siblings were too young for him to truly know; aside from the twins, who everyone couldn’t help but like. He’d wanted to take Fred under his wing, if he could, George too obsessed with the idea of starting a_ joke_ shop, of all things, to come along to the Ministry too.

_Merlin help him if Fred went in on the venture too, _he’d thought.

_  
_  
He felt sweat trickle down the side of his pale cheek, and his heart thudded painfully in his chest. He’d assumed that Fred was ready to tour the Ministry, that he understood the _responsibility_ of being within its sacred walls.

  
  
“Wanted to follow in your footsteps.” Tom finished lightly while Percy felt a penchant to start speaking Welsh. He saw how the Minister toyed with his wand, one that he knew he kept holstered in his sleeve. Things happened amongst the Ministry walls that never were leaked to the press, Percy at the helm of smothering it all. “Your family has always been loyal to the Ministry, haven’t they?”

“Yes, sir.” Percy stood with his back turned to Riddle, his hands still clasped behind his back. Gryffindors were known for their bravery, and he had never wanted to assume his old House’s values more than in that moment, though he cursed his brother for showing his foolhardiness (another trait of their shared house). He'd known something was amiss when his brother had slipped from his side and been horrified to find him snogging the muggle-born ward in the hall. “No matter who is in power, they’ve always supported the Ministry. And I,” he faltered for a moment, carefully searching for the right words. “I support you, sir.”

The room felt no warmer than before, and his toes scrunched against themselves inside of his shoes. Percy heard the door close behind him and let out a shaky breath; his insides churning. He knew that he'd failed; more than the time when the visiting dignitaries had walked into the wrong meeting room, and found the Carrow siblings in a compromising position (explaining that had been a _miserable_ trial that had him biting his nails down to the quick) or when fairies ran amuck in the break room, and poisoned bags of tea with a small doses of Tentacula venom. The Aurors had to be called in, and Percy had been castigated by Kingsley for allowing the fairies into the building at all; after he'd given in to pleas from the other departments for a bit of solstice cheer. It’d been a practical joke gone wrong, one of the humorous attempts that Percy detested. However, with everything before, he’d been able to recover from his mistakes; correcting the mistakes and keeping the damage quiet. This was different.

This was _more_ than anything before.

He shifted on his feet, unwillingly remembering the pained look in the muggle-born’s eyes. She'd had tears running down her cheeks and wiped her nose with the woolen sleeve of her sweater; trying her best to swallow her tears. She'd whispered that she was sorry about Fred and that he'd caught her by surprise; as she'd gone to find a book she'd forgotten. She hadn't meant to hurt anyone, she’d never been kissed before, she admitted shamefully - and he’d dismissed her. Silently he seethed about his brother’s foolishness, and the resulting mess, just knowing that a howler from his mother was imminent, or perhaps a visit from his father. They thought he was a child still, the same as the twins, or Ron, or even Ginny. It’d been the same as when he was off at Hogwarts, his mother always meddling from afar, while his father provided a sympathetic, if useless ear to his troubles.

  
  
He hadn’t said a reassuring word to Hermione, or - or anything at all, really. He hadn’t wanted to, as improper as the whole situation was. The Minister should have had a proper child, one that would know better than to be strolling the hall alone, while his brother… his hands clenched, and he shook his head. His brother should have known to control his ill attempts at humor, certainly within the Ministry walls. Now the Minister had left his office, and gone to his ward, the girl - Hermione.

  
  
He reminded himself of her name, feeling a bitter burn on his lips. The mess with Gringotts and the Ministry’s funds wouldn’t be sorted until next week, and nothing would be put back in place. He swallowed dryly and felt his throat grow taut. Nothing was right, and everything was wrong (which is how he felt about it most of all).

  
  
“Merlin,” Percy breathed, his cheeks burning. “Merlin, Merlin, **Merlin**.”

As he saw the single photograph on the Minister's desk, a moving frame of his ward as a toddler, laughing as he cast colorful bubbles off-camera, he suffered from a bitterly cold feeling snaking its way down his collared shirt. The Minister had changed since he'd adopted Hermione, becoming someone that his secretary felt farther than ever from understanding.

  
  
He hadn’t abandoned the causes that made his platform: the rights of purebloods, the elitism of the wizarding world, and stress on knowledge that had so charmed the wizarding society, after looking to the other schools and their freedom with wizarding taboos. Still, Percy knew, there was something different about the Minister, something that no one could touch except the girl.

  
  
Clutching his stomach, he sank to his knees, allowing himself a moment of weakness, and shuddered as his silk trousers touched the floor. It was hard and steadying beneath him, as he felt his stomach roll. He could recall with clarity what he’d eaten, recounting the bland chicken soup from the dining hall, and the buttered roll he’d had just an hour before. It all threatened to make a reappearance, stubbornly climbing up his throat, and held back only by his grinding teeth as he refused to get sick on the Minister’s floor.

  
  
His hands unclenched, he pressed his palm against the wood, feeling the grain beneath his fingers. (_What had he done_?)

  
  
This mistake, Percy felt, wasn’t as easily fixed.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by NCUH 🦝🖤


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tom's POV. 
> 
> Hermione's second kiss. 
> 
> A little bit of squick, and a pure tomione scene. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading, and reviewing! Your comments are so lovely to read, and it's wonderful to hear from you on Tumblr and Discord too. 💗 I love hearing from you all, it means so much to me! I hope you enjoy this chapter. 🦚

The Floo roared to life, Tom holding his ward against his side. She had her face buried against his thick robes and clutched his arm, sobbing. He’d found her in the spare room where Percy had left her, collapsed at the head of the table, and pressing her balled hands against her trembling mouth.

  
  
He’d taken her into his arms, guiding her to the Floo when she’d burst into a plethora of tears. It hadn’t been enough for him to whisper to her in parseltongue, nor cast pretty bluebells for her to admire. He’d taken her to his private Floo, pointedly ignoring his harried secretary who lingered at his desk. “I apologize, sir” Percy began, his cheeks as pale as the parchment that he clutched in his hand. “I was mistaken- “

  
  
Hermione had stiffened in his hold, refusing to look at his secretary, Percy. 

  
  
“Tom,” she repeated, bleating like a pitiful lamb. He’d never seen her like that before, tears running freely down her cheeks then. “Tom, _please_\- “

  
  
“Enough,” Tom said over her head, to his wide-eyed, and then _silent_ secretary. He’d cast a wandless spell beneath his breath, taking Percy’s voice away. “Enough, Percy.”

  
  
His focus was only for Hermione, his sobbing, beautiful bird.

  
  
Winky appeared within a second, the floorboards creaking announcing her arrival, eyes wide at the sight and sound of her young mistress’s tears. She’d quickly taken to the Minister’s ward, caring for her as if she were the same as any pureblooded heiress, and perhaps, even her friend. She would sleep at the foot of her bed if Hermione wished, though the Minister spent more time with her than he allowed Winky to (a fact that made her pout, before slamming her fingers in a drawer afterward, over wanting to disobey his orders).

  
  
“Missus! Winky will help- “

"N-no," Hermione cried and looked at the house-elf with teary eyes. “No, p-please- “

“Hermione- “

  
  
She slipped from his arms, the same as when she’d been a young child, soaked from her bath, with bubbles in her hair. It'd been her favorite game then, to run from him as he tried to wrap her in a towel until he reluctantly gave chase behind her. She'd squeal with laughter as he tried to grasp her, before using a spell to lift her into the air. She'd settle then, as he wrapped her in a towel and nestled her against him, crooning to her in parseltongue.

  
  
Things were different then.

  
  
Winky and the Minister watched her retreating form, as she ran down the hall, and threw herself into one of the coat closets. Winky flinched as she heard the door slam, wringing her hands in distress. “Winky will make tea- “, her head bobbed violently up and down; the little scarf Hermione had made her flapping wildly. “Honey and lavender, the missus will sleep.”

  
  
“Yes,” Tom agreed slowly. “Please do, Winky, and bring it to her bedroom.”

  
  
“Winky will help!” Determined, the house-elf dropped her wrinkled hands. She prided herself on caring for her young charge, originally being the first house-elf that Hermione had taken to. Winky easily remembered how she took her tea, knowing that she liked a drizzle of honey on top, alongside a splash of milk and a cube of sugar (two, if she was on her courses).

  
  
“Bring Crookshanks too, and Nagini, if she’ll come,” he added, dismissing the house-elf with a wave of his hand. Winky apparated with a crack, while he shifted focus to his ward.

  
  
His sorrowful, little ward.

  
  
He was patient as he followed in her footsteps, pausing at the closet door.

  
  
He didn’t ask her to open the door, as his hand curled about the ornate handle. “Hermione,” he said, opening the door where he saw her arms curled around her knees, and her face buried against them. Coats hung down around her, ones with fur about the collar that they wore when they went to Muggle London. He heard her sniffling and saw as he crouched beside her, that she was rocking back and forth.

  
  
He moved to sit against the closet wall, curling his long legs beneath him Indian-style. He murmured a quiet spell, the door closing, and darkness covered them. There was a familiarity there, one that Tom knew well, as he sank against the wooden wall, and felt the end of a coat rest on his shoulder. He had spent enough time in a closet, the faint smell of cedar and mothballs one he knew well.

  
  
His teeth sank against his tongue, as he held himself there, in the present.

  
  
It would do nothing for him to remember, nothing for him to think about the weaknesses he’d had as a child. He never thought of those times, wilting and struggling to cling to life at the orphanage, while others played about him. He never thought of anything from his childhood, the only time he had when he saw the same look in Hermione’s eyes, as his own. She’d been caged as he’d been, isolated amongst those who would never understand her gifts.

  
  
“Hermione,” he said lowly, her name caressed with gentleness. “I’m here.”

  
  
Her sniffling slowed, and her head raised. He saw her tear-stained cheeks, and wounded eyes, the same as the rabbits looked before he dangled them before Nagini. “Tom,” she whispered, her lower lip wobbling. 

  
  
His hand found the small of her back, and his thumb moved in soothing circles. He felt an intangible squeezing of his insides, a feeling that hurt as much as it intrigued him. He was loath to remember at times, that he was human, with a ribcage that could break as another’s could, his blood vessels bursting, and his mind fracturing.

  
  
She nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder and keened softly. “Please d-don’t be upset,” she said, and he made a low noise in the back of his throat. He gleaned a tumble of thoughts, the same as if she had been shouting at him. The boy had surprised her - there’d been curiosity, and wide caramel eyes as his lips had mashed against hers (_his teeth clenched_). Cornered - his hand on her shoulder, and one at her side - magic unfurling in her veins -

  
  
“I’m sorry,” she hiccupped, and he knew that she meant it.

  
  
He’d always taught her that magic was apart of her, more than her name or her blood ever was. It reacted to the world about them, often deciding for itself what it was called to do. Tom could hear the shatter of glass, and the fear that had lodged in the back of Hermione’s throat when she’d stood, frozen, and watched as the Weasley boy had been cut. Tom’s heart pounded harshly, the sound of blood rushing, filling his ears.

  
Guilt and terror had bled through her shock.

  
  
“Come here,” he said, reaching for her. He pulled her, as if she were a child, into his lap, and held her flush against him. He rested his head against the top of her curls and felt her tremble within his grasp, the same as if she were a delicate bird, with awkward limbs and wild curls. “The boy scared you,” Tom said simply. “Your magic reacted to your fear.”

  
  
It was natural, a side of their magic’s attachment to them that wizards knew, even if not acknowledged. He’d never wanted there to be a separation between Hermione and her magic, dividing her abilities into light and dark arts. He never taught her that there was a difference, teaching her the arts side by side. The precocious girl never recognized that she was studying things that others didn’t, the pureblooded children around her knowing better than to question it, for the same reasons that Snape taught her without mockery. They knew that the Minister wished it, his ward raised without fear of her innate talents.

  
  
Until now, when a ginger-colored cat had rattled at her golden cage, swiping at her through the bars, and hissing as if it knew her sweet song. It was unacceptable.

  
  
Unfathomable.

  
  
He would hang the cat from its tail, and listen to it wail, while it choked on the feathers in its mouth.

Tom knew that the disaster with Gringotts enough to turn Percy’s hair white, and his hands shake fitfully as he wrote his rambling treatises, searching fruitlessly for a solution. The other Weasleys would know the same treatment, and feel the same anxiety, in time.

  
First, it was Percy that would wail, and struggle from his hanging tail.

  
  
It was of little consequence that Tom had already discussed the matter at length with the goblins and come to the conclusion that would allow Gringotts to re-open the vaults to a select few families at a time, before letting them in entirely. ‘Let Percy fret over the matter,’ Tom thought with a quiet sense of pleasure. He would handle the matter by wasting acres of parchment paper, and snapping golden quills between his fingers, before ending up at St. Mungo’s, eventually hearing that the crisis was resolved, talks happening that he knew _nothing_ about.

  
  
Hermione shifted, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps.

  
  
“I didn’t mean to hurt him!” His sweet girl cried.

  
  
“I know,” he said ruefully. “I know.”

  
It was the first time she'd been confronted by his lessons; the first time that something had been done to another, instead of burning her fingers during potion-making, or transforming Nagini into a paper bird on accident. This was something tangible and real, something that couldn't be undone by a simple word from him, or a quickly cast counterspell. As studious and excitable about learning as she was, she had learned more in theory than in practice and was still new to being aware of the world around her, magical or muggle.

He remembered, unwittingly then, one of the first times he’d learned the cost of magic. Dumbledore had watched the duels between students, filling in for another professor, and allowed the male students to duel. There’d been no limits, aside from _not_ maiming the other. Having been castigated by a student from Gryffindor, he’d felt an icy rage burning in his veins and had sent the boy flying through one of the cathedral windows.

His jaw clenched, as he remembered Dumbledore’s icy blue eyes studying him.

There’d been no explanations, no excuses for what had happened, and Dumbledore had dragged him by the arm to Headmaster Dippet. Tom had nearly been expelled; the boy grievously injured. He’d spent months in the infirmary, glass embedded in his skin, until he’d been forced to retire to his family cottage to recover. The robes above them swung, back and forth slowly, as Tom relived begging Dippet not to send him back to the Orphanage, not before summer, and allow him to stay at Hogwarts. He’d acceded despite the protests of Dumbledore, and Tom had been allowed to stay (_the sleeve of his robes ruined from his tears, when he’d hidden in the Room of Requirement after, and been sick with relief_).

  
  
"There are always consequences, for any action you make," he said simply. "Everything that we do, Hermione, something will happen. Every speech I use, every proposal I sign or cast aside, something happens because of it."

  
  
“Because of me.”

  
  
“Yes.”

  
  
He reached for her hands, and held them in his, turning them over so her palms were upright. “There is no good, or evil, Hermione. There’s only power.” He brought her hand upward and skimmed the inside of her wrist with his lips. “You may cast Episkey just as you might Stupefy. Does that make you as sinister as the monster that lurks under the bed, in your book of scary stories?”

  
  
She chewed on her lip, while he waited.

  
  
“No,” she said slowly, the ever-logical girl that he knew she was. She had no adoration for divination, preferring to see things in black and white, without gray. “But what if it happens again, Tom? What if I hurt s-someone?”

  
  
“Do you want to see?”

  
  
She squirmed, turning in his lap to face him. “With you?” she asked haltingly.

  
  
“If you’d like.” He replied smoothly.

  
  
“If it - if it happens again- “

  
  
He cupped her cheek with his hand, tracing her lower lip with his thumb. “What of it?" He replied as if she were more than a child before him. "You could. Today, tomorrow, any day something could happen that will make your magic lash out.” He ignored how she stiffened, moving his other hand to rest on her back. He massaged her shoulder blades, kneading her skin through her sweater. “You may hurt Winky, you may hurt me,”

  
  
“But you can control it, Hermione.”

  
  
“How?” She asked, her eyes narrowing.

  
  
She was apt to learn, knowing the same thirst that he had always felt. There’d been a continual burning in the back of his throat, a yearning for knowledge that made him cry out, during his days at Hogwarts. It was a feeling that’d guided him to the restricted section of the library, and to using Slughorn’s stores when he’d take little notice, too charmed with the gift of elf wine Tom had given him. It was a feeling that he knew well, one that had served him as dutifully as it was punishing.

  
  
“Kiss me,” he said, and her cheeks flushed brightly.

  
  
He made no move to encourage her, no move to force her, as his hands stilled. She was quiet a moment, before raising her eyes to meet his, searching his dark eyes as if he were lying.

  
  
He hadn’t, not yet.

  
  
Slowly, she moved to sit on her knees in his lap. She made a small noise, a squeak of surprise, as his hand moved to her nape, his fingers splaying across her skin. Her eyes stayed open, as did his, reflecting the others’ emotions.

  
  
_Please_, he heard her think.

  
  
“Hermione,” he said lowly, as she cradled his face in her hands.

  
  
She kissed the bridge of his nose, tentatively, as he withheld his smile. He felt warmth rolling through his veins, the same as a night spent before a crackling fire, an aged wine flowing like ambrosia down his throat while holding a warm, familiar novel in hand.

  
  
She was everything and nothing he’d known before, a gentle sigh escaping him. Her lips were chapped, and tear-stained as she kissed the tip of his nose, before tracing down to kiss his lips themselves; a sweet, stuttering touch that was entirely _her_. There was no guile there, only a precocious charm that was his bird’s. 

  
  
His hand moved to cradle the back of her head, as he teased her lips with his tongue. He traced her bottom lip with his tongue and felt as she shivered at the feeling.

  
  
He deepened their kiss, tasting the sweetness of her.

  
  
She was Hermione, the gifted little girl that he'd felt pulled to while visiting the orphanage. She was like him, wild with potential, and apt to be lost to the world. He’d adopted her then, into his arms and the Riddle Manor. They were a pair, though he always hesitated to call them a _family_, as she declared. They were alike, magic flooding their veins.

  
  
**Powerful**.

  
  
Yet she was more than that, the girl that was ever at his side. She was the one who turned the pages while he read aloud to her, peppering him with questions, and listening to his answers. She was the one who he allowed to cry while around him and tucked her into bed beside him as if she was far older than she was. She was the only one who knew him, the only one that he would ever allow in.

  
  
She was his, as another had never been.

  
  
And then, he knew, that another would be as she was to him.

  
  
Magic fluttered between them, their hearts beating the same as each other. He felt himself sinking into her, adoring how she caressed his tongue with her lips, suckling on it as if she were a kitten lapping at a fresh bowl of cream. She leaned against his chest, their noses bumping as she tilted her head. He stopped with his tongue, instead claiming her lips with his. He kissed her as if she were the only one, he thought of, unafraid of her wild magic.

  
  
It was the same wildness that he held on a leash, the crescendo that he never allowed his magic to reach on its own. He kept it controlled, and at bay in the background as if were a pet and he the master. He wouldn’t allow it to dominate his life, the same as he would teach her to control hers; while allowing it its power. He would not smother it as Dumbledore encouraged, nor would he _allow_ her to.

  
  
She was his, and he took care of his own, more than anyone would ever know.

  
  
He felt her hands falter as they cradled his cheeks, before falling to his chest. One hand toyed with his collar, while the other rested uncertainly against his stomach. He felt her warmth beneath his robes; the same as if she were the sun adoring him. He kissed her softly, watching as her eyes dilated. She felt their connection as he did, their magic twisting about the other. It was a rush of euphoria, ecstasy blossoming inside them.

  
  
She said words against his skin, incensed utterances and noises that he couldn’t hear; the sound of his heart and her soft exhale of breath all he could concentrate on. He was distinctly aware of her as she shifted, her thoughts a blur as their magic cusped, overflowing with feeling. It was something that few beyond the purebloods at Hogwarts and other schools acknowledged, the tangling of magic that bonded the other to them. There was an advantage on both sides, a fact that families kept in mind during childhood betrothals, and marital arrangements. Power could be gleaned from their partner if they took it.

  
  
_And Merlin help him, he wanted to._

  
  
He reveled in the feeling of his magic, as it slipped from its leash, and curled about her. It wanted to feed from her, twisting and twirling about them as they connected. And yet, it too wanted to protect her, as it tentatively slid about the back of her knees, as if it knew she wasn’t ready.

  
  
_Yet_.

  
  
She broke their kiss, her breathing shaky. “Tom,” she whispered, uncertainty and awe dripping from her tone. Her irises were blown, as he’d never seen before, and her lips swollen from his attention. She was his pretty bird, her cheeks dusty pink and body taut with life in his hold. There were little tears from before, a few strays clinging to her cheeks, and the curve of her chin. “I - I felt- “

  
  
“Something,” he said as if it were as simple as that. Her eyes traced his features, and he stayed as still as if she were an artist, and he the model, naked and exposed, before her.

  
  
For he knew, he was undone in her hands.

  
"Yes," she agreed, then nipped at her lip as if she were afraid to ask him what she wanted. He saw her thoughts turning, a low hum compared to the shrieking noise from before. Though Severus and the famed headmaster Dumbledore were renowned for their Legilimency skills, he was superior to both, ruthlessly expanding on his innate talent for it. It’d served him wonderfully well at the Ministry, and before that, during his days amongst cruel classmates, before they’d been forced to recognize his superiority. It was a wonder what being known as the heir to Slytherin could do, as well as wielding the Cruciatus Curse as others said thank you (which, he did too).

  
  
However, they were things he was loath to use against his ward, the first meaning little, and the second something that made him shudder when even considering casting against her. His bird wasn’t meant to seize and struggle on the floor, foaming at his feet as if she were a rabid dog. No, the thought was abhorrent to him, while the use of Legilimency wasn’t.

  
  
“Did you,” she hesitated for a moment, before turning her doe eyes back toward him. “Did you feel - were you hurt?” Her hands fluttered up to her face, before resting tentatively on his shoulders. “Did I hurt you, Tom?”

  
  
“Far from it,” he murmured, drawing circles with his fingers still, on the nape of her neck. “It would have been easier if you had, little one.”

  
  
Her eyebrows knitted.

  
  
“Why?”

  
He hummed a noncommittal sound. "I would have left you here, instead of wanting to stay,” his voice held a note of teasing to it, alongside rueful honesty that only Hermione could hear. “I’m afraid we’ll leave Percy alone for the rest of the day, and the weekend too.” He smirked as she giggled, a smile on her lips.

  
  
“Please Tom,” she said. “Stay here, with me.”

  
  
“Of course,” he agreed as if it were ever something he had to ponder. He was as decisive as his secretary wasn’t, fretting over little, outside of his ward and on occasion, his familiar (_or hers_). He felt disturbingly content when she was happy, and felt terribly unpleasant when she wasn’t, more so than she would ever know.

  
And she wouldn't if he could hold himself in. “For as long as you want, poppet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by NCUH, thank you for looking over this chapter and helping me keep my laptop alive. You're the best house-elf anyone could have (almost as good as Dobby). 🦝🖤 (and thank you, Jelly, for reading it too!)


	10. Author's Note

Hi everyone!  
  
I just wanted to post an author's note and let you know that I've updated chapters two and three, of Curious Girl. 🐍🖤   
  
Your support has been incredible, and I've been intending for weeks to edit the uploaded chapters and expand on their content. I intend to look over each chapter, and update them this week before uploading a new chapter, though we'll see if that happens (*fingers crossed*!). Things have been crazy for my family, and tomorrow we're taking one of our cats to the vet. He seems to have cut near his bottom, though we have no idea how.   
  
Truthfully, I've been struggling with depression for several months, and recently saw my doctor about it. It may be an issue with my thyroid, and I hope to have things sorted out soon - I can't put into words how much the response to my wor means to me. It's been a humbling experience and your feedback has been so, so very kind. It uplifts me to see my e-mail and read your comments, or even the kudos I receive. 

I'm always here to chat, whether about writing, reylo, tomione, or anything else! If anyone would like to reach out to me, I have a tumblr (@wintertuesday), discord, and can be reached via email too, at winterychat@yahoo.com. You all are so sweet, and precious to me. 🖤


	11. XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! 💜
> 
> We're getting snow here. 
> 
> Snow. For days. And ice, lots of ice. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented on the last chapter, and reached out to me on Tumblr. Your messages were all so sweet, and understanding, it was really touching and made me feel that I wasn't alone in this.
> 
> I met with my doctor, and had tests run, she discovered that my (already low) thyroid was *very* low, and upped my medication. She thinks that may have been causing my depression since it comes on randomly and without any trigger. I'm hoping that she's right, and the medication works! *fingers crossed*
> 
> I hope that everyone has a yummy and fun holiday - I spent time making peanut butter fudge today, it was an *intense* experience, lol. It ended up tasting amazing though! 
> 
> Stay safe, everyone! There could be undead about, murderous dolls, and glittering vampires...💀🖤

“There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights,” Tom read in his low, melodic voice while holding the muggle novel in his lap.

  
  
Hermione had insisted on getting it during their last trip to London, the bookstore filled with Samhain displays. Novels fitting the season had been honored, their titles bound in velvet, and kept high from admiring schoolchildren with grubby, grasping hands. Hermione was different from the other children, she’d always been, as she darted about the bookstore in awestruck wonder and gazed at the displays in fascination.

  
  
It was why he took her amidst muggles, as he watched her face light up with delight, and she clasped books to her chest. He’d reach the ones on the upper shelves for her, while she insisted on carrying them herself. She chattered with him about the endless subjects the bookstore had, and they played games by translating the titles into Latin before Hermione found that ‘magic' books were classified as fiction. She cocked her head, and traced the titles with her hand, before moving forward, both remembering where she was from. She was muggle-born and could have easily been apart of the muggle world if she hadn't been taken to the orphanage. Later, she cried on his shoulder, but at that moment, she moved forward, saying little until the next aisle. She brightened at the classics and eagerly looked through their crisp pages.

  
  
They were amidst Tom’s favorite times with his ward, walking beside her, as they looked at the book titles and newest publications. He ignored the stares from women, politely brushing past the ones that tried to catch his attention, as well as handsome men. He had no followers with him, not then, though his wand was holstered in his sleeve. The crowds would part around them as if the muggles sensed there was something different about them.

  
  
And how could they not?

  
  
His lips curved into a smirk, as he heard rustling noises from behind him. He’d sworn not to turn or look in the vanity mirror, keeping his eyes on the page before him, while his ward dressed. She’d begged him to let her dress for Samhain, and somehow, he’d agreed. She’d planned her outfit with Winky and hadn’t let him know of her plans. He could have used Legilimency on the house-elf but had refrained, knowing there was pleasure in letting his ward have her own way, at times.

  
  
Hands covered his eyes, and he laughed, as Hermione whispered “_Boo_” in his ear.

  
  
“Terrifying," he said feigning dryness and twisted in the vanity seat, to face her. He kept his eyes down still, catching only a glimpse of dark robes past his book. “May I look now, pet?”

"You may," Hermione said solemnly as if it were a grave matter. And he knew, without a doubt, that it was to her, as the air thickened with excited tension. He looked upward and - 

  
  
He stifled the urge to laugh, as he saw she wore formal robes, ones that went past her ankles, and pooled about her feet. He had the feeling that she’d transfigured a pair of his forgotten robes, as the sleeves hung past her hands, and were fashioned in the dark, gray and navy tones that he favored. She wore a crisp, white jumper beneath with a wooly grey skirt, one that he ached to burn. Gold rimmed spectacles rested on the end of her freckled nose, and she wore little makeup, only a swipe of cherry pink on her lips.

  
  
But her hair –

He swallowed as his eyes trailed over her curls, ones that were wild and free. She hadn't let him tend to her curls, insisting that Winky would help her - and the house-elf had, braiding her hair back into a messy bun, and placed a quill over her ear as if she'd forgotten it there while studying. It was a studious look, a _ridiculous_ look, one further accentuated by miniature books that flew around her head, as if they were a halo, along with a piece of parchment paper that said ‘OVERDUE' in thick, bold letters.

  
  
“A librarian, Hermione?”

  
  
“Yes!” She beamed at his guess, showing her teeth. “Snape showed me the library at Hogwarts- “, she didn’t notice the imperceptible twitch of his cheek. “Well, a memory of it, and it was amazing Tom! There were books, endless amounts of them- “ her voice lowered then, and she leaned forward, and grabbed his hand with hers. “And there was a woman - Ms. P-Prin- “

  
  
“Ms. Pince,” he said for her, and she bobbed her head quickly.

  
"She takes care of them all," she said in hushed tones. "It's her duty, she said. Could you imagine? Tasked to take care of books?" Her tone was dreamy, her eyes widening at the thought as if it were the most delightful thing she'd ever heard of. He made a noise in the back of his throat, one that sounded like an agreement to his dreaming girl. “And she scolded him - she scolded Snape! For returning a book late!”

Tom chuckled and cupped her cheek with his hand.

“Should I scold Snape before you, Hermione?” He asked, a lilt of teasing to his voice. “Would that make you happy, if I took him to task as I do Percy?”

  
  
He’d communicated with his secretary solely through penned memos after the Ministry incident, to Percy’s distress. The Minister simply refused to speak to him - greeting everyone else in the morning, and when he left for the night. Percy had lost his attention and sought to have it again, to Tom’s ever frigid amusement.

  
  
She nuzzled her cheek against his hand, before shaking her head. “Snape is better than Percy,” she said earnestly. “He teaches me lots of things, and isn’t _too_ bad,” she hesitated. “He’s exact and_ very_ smart, Tom. I don’t think there’s someone who’s better at potions than him.”

  
  
His eyebrow raised.

  
  
“Should I be jealous, then?”

  
  
She shook her head, her curls bouncing. “No one’s better than you, Tom - just don’t tell Crookshanks, or he’ll be _awfully_ jealous.” Her familiar always wanted to be the center of her attention, _when_ he decided to grace her with his company. There were times when he crawled between them, cuddling against her side while they slept, or meowed until she shared her meal with him (he liked buttered rolls quite a bit, though he wasn’t fond of sugar cubes).

  
  
She stretched on the tips of her toes, and chastely pecked his cheek. “Can we go trick or treating now?”

  
  
He held her cheek a moment more, before nodding.

  
  
“Of course, but first- “

  
  
“First?”

He drew his hand and murmured a spell, a badge appearing on her chest. "Something to mark you as my own," he said lightly. The badge was in Slytherin colors and displayed the words ‘Miss Riddle, Head Librarian’.

  
  
Transfixed, Hermione fondled the badge. ‘Oh! Will it last, Tom?” She asked, tugging at her bottom lip with her teeth. He watched as her lips darkened, before flicking his gaze to hers. "I'd love to keep it if I can!"

  
  
He ran his fingers through her curls, knowing he would have to brush them before she slept, and nodded. "It will last permanently for you if you wish."

  
  
And it did, as she wore it far after Samhain, proudly fixing the badge on her robes. She paid it more attention than she did her adult cord, often stroking it with her fingers, and feeling the emblazoned words, the title that she longed for. She couldn’t be the librarian at Hogwarts, no, (she’d written to Snape about it, who said the appointment would only come after Ms. Pince’s death - she’d been horrified at that, and had sworn she didn’t want it to _ever_ happen) but she could be at their home - the Riddle Manor, and was pleased to be so.

  
  
_Without _any death involved.

  
  
He wrapped his arm about her waist as they left, and she rested her head against his forearm in turn. Ever since their kiss, something had well, _changed_ between them. Tom had drawn her to her feet, and out from the closet and taken her to his bedroom, where tea and toast had been waiting for them. She’d taken it beside him, while he allowed Crooks to rest between them, and Nagini had come to lay about her shoulders, as protective as a familiar could be. Afterward, Tom had read to her, as if she were a child still until she fell asleep and he carried her to bed.

  
  
She’d stayed in his room in the weeks since, sleeping beside him as if she belonged there.

Perhaps she did, Tom mused and glanced down at his ward. She felt _right _beside him, with her hand entwining with his, whether she was dressed for a silly holiday, or not. It wasn’t something that he’d put into words, no, he wasn’t a fool like most Hufflepuffs were. He watched his words and reserved his thoughts for himself, even with her, his precious girl.

  
  
“Happy Samhain!” Hermione said, bouncing on her feet with unrestrained excitement.

She'd carved pumpkins with Winky, the house-elf delighted at the chance to celebrate the season with her charge. Samhain was the time when the deceased was closest to the living, and the wizarding world held the holiday in high regard. Pumpkin carving, baking sweets, and telling scary stories were common (even the house-elves telling each other stories, often involving being forced into clothing) while trick or treating wasn’t.

There was a cautious side to the holiday, as the afterlife intersected with the present, and souls wandered amongst them. Families fiercely guarded their heirs, careful to prevent them from being carried away into the netherworld or replaced by a changeling. Wards were strengthened around manors and even Diagon Alley hung protective charms from their windows, lanterns ever burning, keeping the streets aglow. Hogwarts too, had their own traditions, as Tom knew and the Ministry modeled themselves after; bats encouraged to roost from their rafters, moving statues placed in the entrance, and elaborate cobwebs spun throughout the Ministry with messages interwoven. Their owls too bore black ribbons around their necks and had tiny charms upon them; crossbones and spiders, even cauldrons and Jack-O-Lanterns making an appearance.

  
  
“Happy Samhain,” Tom echoed, as they reached the Floo. He’d agreed to take her to the Malfoy manor, as well as a handful of others: the Notts, Avery, Rowle, and Dolohov agreeing to let her trick-or-treat at their manors, where they would give out handfuls of sugar quills, chocolate frogs, and other sweet treats. Other pureblood children would come with them, dressing as they wished, though Tom had made it clear there would be no _tricks_ allowed, with dutiful house-elves coming along to ensure it.

  
  
It was intended as a revelatory event amongst their circle, one that Hermione had asked for, for several years. The idea of celebrating the holiday in such a muggle way had twisted tautly in his chest, and he’d continually refused until she’d asked him again, amidst the bookstore with her hand in his, and her eyes as wide as a young doe. “_Please, Tom_,” she’d asked, and he’d been unable to resist her.

  
  
How could he?

  
  
He’d ignored the curl of his lip, and the words that rose in his throat - the year before he’d allowed her to decorate their private quarters, and she’d thrown herself into it with excitement. Small, carved pumpkins had been displayed on the fireplace, while he’d found his sheets turned black, and the house-elves had frenzied themselves with making fantastic desserts, featuring cauldron cakes, and sugar work spun into Samhain like symbols. Hermione had even coaxed Nagini into wearing a small, paper hat, while Crookshanks had resolutely refused to wear a costume. She hadn’t asked Tom to wear anything, though she’d given him sugar candy she’d made with Winky, and he’d eaten with care, preserving them in stasis for weeks. He’d thought of her smile when he felt them melt on his tongue, sweeter than anything he’d had before.

  
  
A foolish weakness, but one he refused to renounce. 

Trick-or-treating would do little harm, as the party was kept amongst his pureblood circle and strongest supporters. He shuddered at the thought of taking her to a neighborhood in London, or somewhere close to Diagon Alley, where some shopkeepers opened their fronts late and handed out little treats (gelatin insects a favorite, alongside caramel apples and little cups of butterbeer). He had no wish for her to be amongst them, and not beside him. It wouldn't suit for the Minister to appear as a common half-blood or muggle-born, one who would take his child amongst the common crowd.

It was amusement enough to think of how Lucius reacted when he received a letter from the Ministry, with Percy asking in the name of the Minister if his ward could trick or treat at the manor. Tom had known the patriarch would think of mad Bellatrix, as she celebrated the season at Stonehearst with the fellow patients (the young Potter amongst them).

Dumbledore had extended an invitation for Hermione to celebrate the season at Hogwarts, an invitation the Ministry had politely declined, citing the health of his ward. There had been rumors about Hermione for years, avid readers of the Daily Prophet believing the Minister had adopted her because of her filthy blood, one with the potential cure to Dragon Pox, or another fierce malady. It was a rumor that made Tom sneer, though he made no move to publicly dismiss it (Let them wonder, he mused, let them gossip.)

  
  
He had other matters to attend to. 

  
  
“_Malfoy Manor_!”

  
  
The Floo lit up brightly, as they vanished in a cloud of smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by NCUH, thank you! 🦝🖤


	12. XII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No idea where my inspiration came from for this chapter, I think I surprised myself and Ian (my friend/beta NCUH) by how quickly I wrote this. I've always struggled with capturing Draco's POV, though he's not as difficult to understand as Tom, and have deleted many dramione drafts (though I have one saved to work on!). 
> 
> Here, he just came alive - I ran with the idea and it came together so smoothly! 🖤 
> 
> It was the kind of lucky strike you have as a writer, that you hope to have every time you write! My productivity rate would exceed 200% if every writing session went like this one, lol. I hope that everyone enjoys reading it, and getting another perspective. :') There will be minor dramione in this story, however it was/is written with tomione in mind. I'm not one for love triangles, nor cheating/infidelity, so don't worry! I prefer HEA, always. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and don't be afraid to reach out to me! I love reading your comments and chatting with you all through them and via Tumblr. 🖤 Have a nice weekend, everyone. 🦝💗
> 
> PS: I know that canon-wise Snape isn't Draco's godfather, though it's been accepted as canon in fanfics. I liked the idea of it, and used it here! :)

Draco was the favored son.

  
  
The _only_ son, his mind reminded him unhelpfully, in a tone awfully similar to Snape’s. His godfather was a vitriolic man, someone even he’d never hope to understand. His mother had tried, once, to his godfather after her arguments with his father had moved from hushed whispers to shouting in the hallway. Draco had often heard snatches of his father’s cold tones, while his mother lost her famed manners, and fought with him as if she were a barking mad Gryffindor.

  
  
He loathed the sound of her wailing, and knew more than he wanted to, concerning his parent’s marriage: his mother wanted another child, while his father was content with his heir, his mother wanted more warmth - more expression, as if she wasn’t of the same nature, while his father shunned at expressing one’s feelings (a sentiment his son could agree with). He heard priceless antiques shatter, and crash, just as he heard his father’s cane swish through the air, and strike something - _someone_ \- solid.

  
  
Afterward, Draco would see a Malfoy owl carrying a letter in its beak, and sometime after, the Floo would activate in the great hall. His godfather would come like a wraith in the night, his robes billowing around him, and would meet with Narcissa in her private sitting room. It was a wonder that his mother thought Snape would understand, Draco marveled, the man more buttoned up than his father was.

  
  
Admittedly, with Snape, he’d never had the fear of being struck, and he was sure his mother felt the same.

  
It wasn't as if Draco tiptoed to her door, and put his ear to it, finding that it was useless; his godfather having cast wards over it. He knew better than most, regardless of how stupid his peers might think him, except at Potions (assumedly from his godfather taking mercy on his pitiful creations). No, Draco knew better than them all, as he instead charmed their house-elf, Tipsy, into watching the pair instead.

  
  
That was how he knew his mother had appealed to Severus, as she called him, to spirit her away (as if she were the same as her sister, Andromeda). His godfather had told her that her thoughts were fantasy, a dream that was always out of reach for pure-bloods, no matter their gender. There were traditions to uphold, the sacred nature of fidelity among them. 

  
  
“_I know what you desire_,” he’d said calmly, adding a sugar cube to his tea. He was served on the finest china, a brilliant set that Narcissa had inherited upon her marriage. “_It will never happen, Cissa, not if you want to have any standing in Britain_.”

  
  
Society would ostracize her, the pure-bloods closing rank with Lucius, and any hope of seeing her child would be forgotten. She’d live as a woman forgotten, one with her virgin inheritance returned to her, but her reputation in tatters. “_Where would you go_?” He’d continued, sipping his steaming tea. “_France? Your cottage there is from Lucius, is it not_? _Italy, or somewhere as remote as Bulgaria?_” He cocked his head, and Tipsy hadn’t said what Narcissa had replied, loyal as she was to both the Malfoy heir and her Mistress. “_Could you live elsewhere on the continent, never seeing Draco, aside from his appearances in the papers? Would you have him come of age without you?_”

  
  
Tipsy had trembled as she told Draco how Narcissa had cried, while the house-elf watched from the shadows. She’d felt awfully disloyal to her Mistress, wanting to fetch her a kerchief, but had resisted. “_You’re a good elf_,” Draco said, though he hadn’t moved to touch her. He wouldn’t, watching impassively as the house-elf wrung her hands and moved to bash her head against the wall. “_Thank you Tipsy. What happened next?_”

  
  
“_You may think me cruel_,” Severus murmured, taking Narcissa’s trembling hand in his. “_And I am, to be kind to you, Cissa. My mother- _“

  
  
Draco had never heard of her before, though he’d known Snape had to have come from _somewhere_. (No matter how amusing the thought of a stork delivering his dark-eyed, scowling godfather beneath a rose bush was.)

  
  
"_My mother gambled with her marriage, and lost_," Severus had finished smoothly, though Tipsy recounted how his dark, solemn eyes had burned. "_Consider your life, and Draco's, before you, make a decision_."

  
  
And she had, Draco knew.

  
  
The Manor was easy to live apart from each other, its twisting hallways, and massive rooms enough to ensure one could lose themselves within its wings for _days_ without seeing anyone but a house elf. His mother had retained her rooms beside Lucius but had replicated her private studies in another wing entirely. Her new suite was one that no one saw, even her son having never stepped foot into them.

  
  
Draco hadn’t said a word to his mother about the move, nor his father. His conversations with Lucius were formal and stilted, his stomach twisting the same as when he played in a Quidditch match. His palms sweated when he felt his father's piercing gaze settle on him, and his toes pinched in his oxfords when his father asked him questions, intent on learning about his days at Hogwarts. It wasn't indifference with his father, instead, it was something he couldn't put his finger on, when he lay alone in his bed and turned it over in his head. His relationship with his mother was far more relaxed, though there was always a note of clinginess; where his father was remote and cold, questioning him about his lessons, and making him flinch with his criticisms, his mother coddled and cooed, often making him feel as if he were a toddler again. His parents cared for him, as he did them, though they were equally difficult to understand. 

  
  
_Who would understand_, Draco wondered?

  
  
Blaise treated his changing stepfathers as one would the weather. He had little care who wore the title, knowing that his mother would change her mind again, and his stepfather would have an unfortunate (but entirely natural) end. Theo had a minute relationship with his mother, while he revered and feared his father, the same way Draco did his. Pansy he often talked to while at school, but rarely about anything substantial.

  
  
Draco nibbled on a green apple; one the elves had picked from the famed Malfoy orchards. He relished the tangy taste on his tongue while leaning against the doorway of his sitting room. Hermione would listen, he decided, even if she didn't have parents and wouldn’t understand.

  
  
He felt guilty at the thought, his stomach twisting sharply, the same way it had at breakfast when his father had sneered at a photographer of the Minister and his ward in the Daily Prophet. "I see the Minister treats the mud-blood well,” Lucius said, his lip curling at the note that the Minister had taken his ward to Diagon Alley, where they’d attended a new shop’s opening, and headed the ribbon-cutting ceremony. 

  
  
Privately, Draco thought it was a fetching picture of Hermione, and planned to clip it from the newspaper, tucking it away in his pocket. He’d flinched at his father’s tone, and the way he’d spit the word mud-blood as if even saying the word sullied him. It wasn’t that Draco didn’t say the word too - he did, at school and at home, the same as the other pure-bloods did. Yet he’d never said it in regards to Hermione, no, never to or about _her_.

  
  
Draco hadn’t said that the _mud-blood_ was his friend, having gone trick or treating with her only days before. His father hadn’t the courage to refuse the Minister’s request, and Draco privately relished the thought of seeing how his father simpered before him. It seemed that no one could (or would) say no to the Minister, and Draco had been pleased as could be when he’d filled a bag full of candy at the Nott Manor.

  
  
Hermione had been dressed in a ridiculous outfit, and he’d laughed when he’d seen her. Out of everyone and everything she could have been, she’d _chosen_ to be Ms. Pince - her hero, he’d learned with a horrified moan. She’d only appreciated the librarian more when Draco told her how he’d been banned from the library several times, for trying to sneak into the Restricted Section.

  
  
(Though, Hermione agreed, there shouldn’t be restricted books at all. When could learning ever be harmful, after all?)

  
  
He’d felt a flutter in his chest when she’d shared her candy with him, though they both had bags that were stuffed to the brim. She’d bossily told him that he could have her chocolate frogs, as she knew he had a weakness for sweets, and she’d traded him her toffees in exchange for sugar quills. Their hands had brushed against each other’s, and he’d looked away quickly, though he’d seen how she blushed.

  
  
Hermione_ was_ pretty, Draco thought, his fair brow furrowing. Prettier than Pansy, despite her wild curls, and the way she raised her voice and took a swotty tone when he did something she thought was dangerous or just plain, _foolish_. He admired the rich, caramel tone of her curls, and knew how soft they were, having pulled on them often enough. Her skin was flawless too, the same as the Grecian statues that filled the Malfoy library, though the freckles across her nose convinced him she was _real_. She scolded him as if he weren’t a prestigious heir at all, but a boy, one only a few months younger than she was. Yet she could be fun too, as keenly intelligent as she was, and how she would always be at his side if he asked her to, and not just when it suited her best.

  
  
He thought uncomfortably of Pansy, who insisted on sitting close to him during meals and often toyed with his food, even stealing his sweets as her own. She always thought it was, well, amusing but he didn’t think so at all (besides the first time, when he’d laughed, thinking she’d give it back - until he’d watched as she chewed on his brownie, and left none behind for him). Hermione wouldn’t have done that, not even if he was being a prat - no, he knew, she’d hit him instead, but she wouldn’t steal his sweets, or force him to partner with her during assignments. If Hermione was at Hogwarts -

  
  
It was a familiar train of thought, one he’d had many times before.

  
  
_And why wasn’t she?_ Draco frowned.

  
  
She was almost as good at potions as he was, (_sometimes_ better, he grudgingly admitted), and knew that she often helped Theo with his Charms homework. She was interested in nearly every subject, aside from Divination, and he couldn't remember ever seeing her without a book in hand (aside from when they'd gone trick or treating - she'd told him facts about Samhain that she knew instead). She even had an interest in becoming an Animagus, and he'd teased her about becoming a furry kneazle, one that rivaled her familiar in raggedy appearance. He hadn't meant it, of course, privately entranced at the idea of her becoming a creature; something he had a minute interest in, despite how his godfather had scowled at the thought. It was something he hadn’t brought up to Theo or Blaise, not yet, but would share it with Hermione the next time he saw her.

  
  
He felt his frown deepen and took another bite out of his apple.

  
  
If Hermione attended Hogwarts, he would see her every day - the same as he saw Blaise and Theo, and the others. He had no doubt that she’d be placed into Slytherin. Even the Sorting Hat wouldn’t be brave enough to place her into Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, though, he relented that Ravenclaw might suit her too. Regardless, Draco knew that Hermione would be happy at Hogwarts beside him (a thought he tried not to linger on), as much as she might scold him and the others for pranking rival Gryffindors and sneaking into the Restricted Section of the library. She would be at her rightful place beside them, the same as her guardian had once been, amongst Draco’s father and the other pure-blood men.

  
  
Lucius had spoken often about his friendship with the Minister, the same as Draco heard Theo’s father did. Pure-blood friendships were different - everyone had at least an acquaintance with one another, families intermingled enough through marriage, and Snape was right, they always closed ranks around another. Half-bloods (something the Minister was tacitly excluded from) and muggle-borns would never understand the instinctive relationships that pure-bloods had with another, the desire to protect the social order, and their own standing -

  
  
Draco shifted, crossing the room in steady strides, to settle in his favorite velvet chair. His room was apprised of green damask and gilded silver, the Malfoy crest entwined into the very wallpaper. It was a room where everything was inherited, down to the Quidditch poster that hung above his bed (one from when his grandfather had played as a Seeker). It was a room of heritage, and right, something only a pure-blood would understand.

  
  
Hermione would understand it too, Draco knew, if she went to Hogwarts. She would close ranks with the rest of the noble Slytherins and would fit in beside them. It was something he knew that the others would agree with if Theo's frequent letters to her and Blaise's sly smile were anything to go by. The others too, would understand her worth as the Minister's ward and would know that she was one of them and not one of the outsiders.

  
  
So why wasn’t she with them?

  
  
“I want to see her,” Draco admitted to the empty room, where only the crackling of the fire interrupted the silence. He missed her after seeing her at Samhain and knew his weekend at home would end soon enough. He'd been allowed a week's reprieve from Hogwarts and had forgotten how cold the Manor was, his room set in its own ward away from the others. Merlin knew that he needed more company if he was talking to _house-elves_.

  
  
He’d written a letter to Hermione, though he’d thrown it into the fire after he splattered ink across the parchment paper. The words hadn’t seemed right anyway, after he’d blabbered about Quidditch practice, and knew she’d be bored to tears. He munched thoughtfully on his apple, wondering what he could tell her, while not boring him in turn.

  
  
“The hippogriff?” He wondered, having been introduced to one weeks before, during his Care of Magical Creatures class. The beast hadn’t taken lightly to him, rearing back on its legs, and narrowly missed striking him in the face. It hadn’t been his fault that the beast was unstable and easy to startle, unlike the one that Neville had greeted. Draco snorted at the thought of his classmate, knowing how skittish the boy was. He continually acted as if he'd seen a boggart, so easy to scare that the Slytherins had a pool going on who would scare his hair white first.

  
  
(Currently, Crabbe was in the lead, having dressed like a murderous bride, and flown near the Gryffindor dorm rooms, banging on the window to Neville's room. The detention had been worth the look on Neville's face, Crabbe said, gleefully laughing).

Yes, Draco decided, his lips twisting with amusement. He was sure that Hermione would be interested in the hippogriff, as well as their games with Neville. Merlin knew that she would most likely scold him (“_Can’t you be nice, you prat?_” Draco chuckled, hearing her swotty voice in his head) but he knew she would laugh, all the same.

  
  
“Perfect.”

  
  
He tossed his apple core into the fireplace, and _Accio’d_ a quill and parchment paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by NCUH, thank you! 🦝🖤


	13. XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My mom is *terrified* of bats.
> 
> We live in a 200-year-old house that...bats love, inside and out. 🦴🦴
> 
> Also, I joined the 2019 Phandom Secret Santa! It's for anyone who loves Phantom of the Opera, and gifts are both physical and digital. 💜 If anyone knows of a Secret Santa (or/and fanfic gift fic) for Harry Potter or Star Wars, I'd love to know about it! I adore Christmas and would love to participate. 🖤
> 
> As always, thank you to everyone who leaves kudos, comments, or/and bookmarks my work. It means everything to me that people are reading, and enjoying my work! I recently reached over 50,000 views and can't believe it - it feels like a Christmas and birthday present rolled into one (and more). 💜🖤
> 
> I'm always open to chatting (about anything, really) and requests, even if mine are closed. Please feel free to contact me on Tumblr, via email, or ask for my discord. :)

"Oh!" Hermione's hushed tones were filled with excitement, as she tilted her head back. Theo thought she looked like a classical muse (the same kind that filled the Nott manor’s portraits) with her dark curls cascading down her back, and the curve of her neck exposed. "They’re still here, Theodore!"

He grinned despite himself, noting how she called him by his full name when she was excited. It was something no one else did, though Draco called him "Nott" on occasion. It always made them laugh in the Slytherin common room; his friends knowing that he was far from being the same as Crabbe or Goyle.

She shushed him when he chuckled, "We can't disturb them, Theo," she whispered, never taking her eyes from the small, furry creatures. Their ears were curled, and bodies had dark, tufted fur, while their smushed in faces had more than a few similarities to her familiar’s. “Not any more than required.”

"Not when _we_ need something from them," Theo replied wryly. Neither missed how he’d said ‘we’, though he had little inclination to near the creatures.

"_Theo_\- “

There was a warning note to her voice, and he pressed his palm against his mouth, holding back his laughter. She would have stomped her foot if she could have, he knew, but she was busy leaning on the tips of her toes and had her back against the stone window frame.

Slowly she withdrew her wand from her sleeve and whispered a spell. They both waited as a gentle light filled the space between her and the bats before it circled over each furry creature. It flashed over one of them, stayed the same at another, before flashing twice over the third one.

“_Oh_\- “ he knew without looking that she was excited, her voice nearly reverent as the light faded. The bats stayed transfixed in their resting places, and she stretched her other hand up to them. “They’re going to have babies, Theo!”

  
  
She stroked one's furry breast and felt its pulse thrum. "It trusts me, I think." Hermione murmured; her voice softer than he'd ever heard. "It hasn’t tried to bite me once."

"Hopefully it doesn't maul you," Theo replied, turning his wand between his fingers. He knew hexes that would harm the bats if it came to that, though he fervently hoped it didn’t. (He doubted he’d keep his skin if Hermione was hurt, though he didn’t know who would hurt him worse: his father, Draco, or the Minister.)  
  
  
  
He'd kept his wand in his hand, ever since she'd dragged him up to the third floor the first time. The floor held the 'forgotten' rooms, one’s few ever visited, aside from the elves Hermione said, who dusted regularly. The floor was filled with floor to ceiling windows, velvet curtains, and spare rooms.  
  
  


It was the very last she'd taken him to and insisted he cast a silencing charm on their footsteps. "_They scare easily_," she'd said, and he'd been filled with curiosity as she'd beckoned him close to the open window. Theo knew that his friend had secrets, the same as they all did, yet felt a thrill beneath his skin at the thought of her sharing one with him.  
  
  
  
He'd vomited more than once after he'd found an unsent letter to Hermione beneath his sheets and had known that someone had placed it there (someone who'd wanted him to know that _they_ knew). Theo knew that Hermione wouldn't forgive him if she knew someone had discovered their muggle reading club, yet had said nothing to her, sending the letter afterward.  
  
  
  
Since then, she’d said nothing - nothing that gave away that someone had told her of his failure to keep their secret. He feared her reaction almost as much as he feared her guardian’s, and his father’s, if he was honest (something he often was forced to be with himself). He breathed easier then as he leaned against the windowsill, and readied himself to see what she was hiding.  
  
  
  
She'd placed her finger on her lips before showing him her secret -

"_Bats, Hermione?_"

He'd raised his eyebrow, looking from the sleeping creatures to her. "_I could show you thousands at Hogwarts_\- "

She'd stepped away from the window and shook her head. "_These are special bats, Theo! I looked them up in a book_\- "

He’d hidden his smile, and she stuck her tongue out. “_Barbastella barbastellus_ \- _the barbastelle bat, they’re rare in Great Britain_." She scrunched her nose, her freckles on display, dotting along the ridge of her nose and cheekbones. "_Not many people see them, and the government has their status as vulnerable - on the conservation act_,” she added. 

He'd been puzzled over the muggle term until she'd compared it to the work that Hagrid did (Draco having written her when he'd first started at Hogwarts, complaining all about the half-giant) with magical creatures but on a larger, political scale.

"_So, are they your pets? Or the Queen's?_" Theo teased, having been introduced to the English monarchy after he’d seen his friend’s ten pence. She’d ducked her head in response, no one teasing her as he did. It was gentler than Draco, and had only one meaning, unlike Blaise who adored wordplay.   
  
  


"_They don't belong to anyone, Theo_. _Which means_\- ” he knew how she felt about creatures, perhaps more than even Draco knew, as he had ten times his patience, though he wagered they had the same inclination to listen to her.

“_They’re free to live as they’d like_,” Theo had finished for her, knowing by the stiffening of her shoulders, and the knit of her brow that she was going to lecture him. Merlin knew he liked to listen to her, and see the flush of her cheeks, and the crackle of her curls, but he knew her lecture would inevitably spill into S.P.E.W.

“_Yes_,” she’d agreed, her head bobbing. “_I've just been looking after them_\- "

Which led to them now; Hermione casting a pregnancy diagnostic spell, one that she'd forced him to show her (though she’d stopped at physically twisting his arm behind his back, as she had after Blaise had taught her a new hex); knowing that he’d developed his own diagnostic spell for birds after his owl had acted strangely. Theo had known he couldn't take his owl to Hagrid, remembering his father's sneering attitude about the half-giant, and had created his own spell instead and found his owl had a twisted egg inside her. He’d gone to Astoria and Daphne to help him with his owl and later expanded the spell to examine birds that gave live births, as well as ones that laid eggs.

“Should we tell someone?” Hermione wondered, tilting her head. “The government records their numbers but- “ she tugged on her bottom lip, the color darkening.

“They’re muggle,” he finished for her.

“Yes,” she exhaled.

He knew it would be pointless to tell her that she didn't have to make the pug-like creatures her responsibility, knowing it would only result in a fevered argument on her part. He held his wand between his fingers, feeling the steady weight of it, as magic warmed his fingertips. "Hagrid," Theo decided, "he should know how to care for the bats, or at least what to look for if something goes wrong."

“I don’t- “ her gaze flicked from him, back to the window, “I don’t think Tom would let him come here.”

Theo nodded calmly, “Hagrid isn’t welcome in any pureblood house.”

  
  
It was a simple fact, one that nearly all of the Sacred 28 children knew. More than one had been fascinated by the half-giant and the stories he told, not to mention the creatures he usually had nesting in his beard. Hagrid was someone apart from them, a row beneath half-bloods, yet just above mud-bloods -

_Muggle-born_, Theo corrected himself, and he, too, found himself avoiding his friend’s gaze. “You could owl him though,” he said. “If…if the Minister lets you- “ somehow he never saw himself as being able to address the man by name, feeling his hands tremble at the mere thought of it, “Hagrid would be happy to help you, he’s fascinated by any creature.”

Hermione chewed on her fingernail, before tentatively smiling. “I’ll owl him then,” she decided, saying nothing about her guardian _allowing_ her to. Hagrid was a teacher, the same as Snape was, and she’d always owl’d him (often peppering him with questions from novels she’d read, or asking him about a potion - though she liked to send him things she thought he needed; sending him toad caps and dried thistle, amidst other herbs she found while exploring their acreage).

  
  
"I don't want to interfere with nature, but," Hermione tugged at her jumper, an ombre lilac that suited her well. "I want them to be okay," she added in hushed tones as if it were a secret. And with his friend, Theo knew, it probably was.

  
  
"Hagrid will help," he reassured her and began to walk with her as they left the room (Theo casting a spell to quietly shut the window behind them). "And I'll help too if I can find spells suitable for your pretty friends.” They both laughed at that, knowing her unabashed love for furred (and frequently _unique_ looking) creatures.

  
  
Theo wouldn't be surprised if Hermione, ever meeting Hagrid, took to him too.

As they neared the stairs, Theo felt her hand find his, and their fingers entwined. He was surprised by the movement, knowing that Hermione wasn’t as warm as a Hufflepuff was (something he took relief in after previously being paired with Hannah Abbott on a class project). “Hermione?”

“Experimenting,” she replied, looking the same as if she were puzzling over an exam question.  
  
  
He shifted in place, feeling the weight of his robes across his shoulders. There was always a line with Hermione, one he couldn’t quite put his finger on, that resonated the same as when he’d met the Minister. Rather, it was the Minister talking to _him_, the few times he’d met Hermione when he was home, or in public.

Minister Riddle was always charming and polite, but Theo felt there was a thick line between them, one he’d never be able to cross, even if the Minister was the same age as he was. Hermione was a few months younger than he was and he counted her among his friends, yet he wouldn’t call her to see rare bats, as she did, or willingly share banned material between them. He would share it with Draco or Blaise (though nothing muggle) but if she didn’t cross the line toward him, he wouldn’t -

No. He couldn’t.

Theo was curious at her reply, his steps slowing until he stalled entirely at the top of the stairs. “Why?”

“I wanted to see how it felt,” she replied earnestly, and he felt her fingers pull away from his. He grabbed them back, and held her hand in his, unwilling to let go. “Do you…”

"“Do you know how it should feel?”

If it had been Blaise, he would have seen it as a golden opportunity, while Draco - well, he wasn’t sure what his friend would have done, considering his crush on her. Theo swallowed, feeling a cold sweat at his next thought. "You don't mean," he stumbled over his thoughts and felt her curious gaze upon him. "Because of the bats," he said weakly. "The pregnant ones- "

An uncomfortable silence descended between them before Hermione snorted.  
  
  
  
  
“I know all about the birds and the bees,” she said, rolling her eyes, though a smile stayed on her lips as if she found his embarrassment amusing. “I don’t need you to explain that, Theo, Winky already did.”  
  
  
  
  
**Thank Merlin**.  
  
  
  
  
“What are you looking for then?” He prompted.  
  
  
  
  
“How it feels,” she said slowly, a blush settling on her cheeks. “Not - not _that_, Theo," she clarified. "But how it's supposed to feel," he waited as she grasped for words, and he knew her thoughts were whirring away. _Did her mind ever rest?_ He doubted it, though he wondered if she'd thought about things like this before.  
  
  
  
“Like this,” she illustrated, squeezing his hand. “Or kissing.”  
  
  
  
  
He blinked.

  
  
  
“What?”

“Kissing,” Hermione clarified, her cheeks flushing. “There are books about it, aren’t there? About how it feels, what you’re supposed to _do_\- ” he knew that she was becoming agitated as she pulled at her curls, and he murmured a spell; her curls moving on their own back into a simple braid down her back. 

He ran his fingers through his own hair, debating internally with himself. “You know,” he swallowed as she tilted her head toward him. “It’s just, err, something you do Hermione, there isn’t a rightness to it.”

He knew better than to ask who she’d kissed.  
  
  
  
Draco? Blaise?  
  


  
He kept himself with her, not wanting to retreat into his thoughts. "It isn't a test," he continued and chuckled when she frowned as if it _was_. “You don’t pass or fail.”

“It’s something you can get better at though,” she argued, taking the steps down to the second floor with him. “Isn’t it? Kissing? Touching- “  
  
  
  
“Hermione,” Theo interrupted her, feeling his ears darken. “Did you - did you do something with someone, or are you just- “  
  
  
  
“I wouldn’t pick this for,” she scowled as she groped for the words to say, “for studying in my free time for… for no reason,” she finished lamely.  
  
  
  
“Right,” Theo said. “I… I’m going to owl you some books to read.”  
  
  
  
Oh, he knew of the books that Blaise collected and had begun to share amongst his housemates. Theo had read one in the Common Room, feeling a weight in his stomach as the peers around him hooted and jeered, while they passed the books around.

  
  
It'd been Daphne, later, who'd shown him rows in the library that held romance books, softer ones, their words making him feel as if he were stretched beside a warm fire with a cup of butterbeer. He'd felt like an awful swot but enjoyed it all.  
  
  
  
They’d had naughty bits, with love, something he’d never seen between his parents (or wanted to - but still, the differences in what he read and what he saw were sharply different from each other).  
  
  
  
If Daphne had been talking to him the way Hermione was he wouldn’t be able to resist his laughter, knowing that she was teasing him, in her own, strange way.

  
  
But Hermione -

  
  
Hermione, he knew, was utterly serious.

  
  
She brought their entwined hands up to her cheek and pressed his palm against her face. “Thank you, Theo,” Hermione said solemnly, and he knew she meant it. “I just…”

  
  
Her eyes fluttered closed, as she paused before she drew her gaze up to his. "I want to be_ good _at these things.”

  
  
Everything, if she could.

  
  
She didn’t add for who, and he didn’t ask, already feeling like his heart was aching in his chest. “I know,” Theo replied, and knew without question, it was another shared secret between them.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by NCUH, thank you! 🦝🖤


	14. XIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! 🎄
> 
> Thank you for all the wonderful comments, and sweet messages - you all are such an inspiration to me, and I'm thankful for each and every one of you! ❤
> 
> I apologize for slowly updating Curious Girl, I'm currently going through a health crisis (just in time for the holidays, lol) and everything has been a challenge. I'm grateful to be able to write, and I'm always thrilled whenever I'm able to update a story. ❤ I'm almost at 100k views and can hardly believe it - thank you, thank you, thank you!! 
> 
> I hope that everyone has a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year! 💖

Hermione had forgotten the yuletide celebrations at the orphanage.

Left alone in her cradle, she’d been too young to hear the smothered cries beneath the covers, too innocent to feel the smothered fits of envy that hung over the dormitory room. There were few children given presents, fewer still that were adopted before the advent celebrations began.

Alone in her cradle, she was allowed to dream still.

Tom had not forgotten.

He allowed himself little forgiveness to reminisce, unlike the ones who served him. He wore the Gaunt name when it suited him, grateful only for the inheritance that coursed through his veins. Nothing mattered more than what he had made, as he had turned from a child unwanted, and unloved, to a man that was desired and feared in equal measure.

Still, when he saw the dates creeping across the calendar, and the ever lit garland was hung across the great stairways in the Ministry, and the smell of gingerbread and the sound of laughter filled the air, he had little choice but to remember.

He had little choice left but to ache.

Prints were left on the windowsill still if one visited Woolworth's Orphanage, from where he'd splintered the wooden pane while watching a child adopted. The boy's name was Marcus, a boy turned man that he hated still, feeling his name engraved into his very skin.

Only Percy knew that Christmas day was the sole day the Minister allowed himself indulgences, as he seated himself behind his great desk, and drank himself beyond feeling on cheap firewhiskey. It was always his secretary’s gift to him; Percy buying it in his own name, from a shop near the Ministry, knowing how the press would have a field day if the Minister purchased it for himself. He always left the bottle in its plain, brown paper on the Minister’s desk, where he knew he reached for it hours later. 

Percy knew it wasn’t his place to ask if the Minister would prefer other plans for Christmas day, knowing that any pureblood family in Britain would be happy to host a dinner for him, or a grand ball if he wished. He knew how charming the Minister could be, having seen him in attendance more than once - really, Percy thought, even if he were a buffoon, he could have seized the Ministry on charm alone. He had made Kingsley pale in comparison, and the others that had run against him, Tom refusing to stutter where they stumbled. Even his detractors couldn’t say that Riddle was rude, with his unfailingly polite manner during debates, and his reverence of purist manners. The Minister had stayed infallible amidst the publicity he gathered and was charm itself still.

Riddle was the best of his House, Percy’s Gryffindor sensibilities aside, and not for the first time, Percy was perplexed at why Hogwarts hadn’t personally received him. There could have been a celebration between the Ministry and Hogwarts, one welcoming the yuletide season, and the New Year. It would make for excellent P.R., something the press would have willingly sunk their teeth into, and the picture of Dumbledore and Riddle would have been revered by every wizard in the country.

“Marcus Flint,” Tom had said to his secretary once.

“Sir?”

Percy had half-turned, his eyes on the amber liquid in the Minister’s glass. He saw his reflection in the low light of the room, magnified a thousand times, all of them fading with every sip the Minister took. “Marcus,” Tom repeated, “Flint.”

There was a tapestry that hung in the Minister’s office, an heirloom tapestry with every name of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. The Malfoys, the Blacks, the Notts, the Carrows, and Abbotts, even the mad Longbottoms, Percy knew every name by heart. They were the past, the present, and the future of the wizarding world.

His own family was a part of it; no matter how his mother might decry their lineage, or his father reveled in muggle things. He had traced the tapestry often enough, drawing his finger across the silken threads every time a new heir was born, regardless of what side of the blanket they came from.

Yet Marcus was a name Percy didn’t recognize, his brows knitting together.

“Do you know where he works now?”

“I - I apologize,” Percy said, bowing his head. He felt his hair tickle the nape of his neck, something that wouldn’t have happened if he visited his mother still. Every year at the Burrow, she gave him a hair cut in the kitchen, as if he were a child again. And the man who had his hair trimmed on Saville Row allowed his mother, humoring her as she swore her dull kitchen scissors were better than the fine scissors his dresser used. "I don't know, sir. I can make inquiries -"

Tom continued as if his secretary had never spoken.

“He was a healer at Mungo’s months ago,” his lip curled, the movement marring his handsome features. “He drank the same firewhiskey,” he tipped his glass to Percy, as if he were giving a fine toast to him, “instead of attending to a patient, and was relieved for it.”

Tom turned his head, looking toward the generous windows that lined the side of the room. The view was one overlooking the street below, though anyone who happened to look up to them, from the outside couldn’t see in.

“He’s stayed near Spinner’s End since,” the name rang a bell in Percy’s memory, though he couldn’t place it. “His parents have disowned him.”

“Unfortunate, sir.”

Tom’s lips quirked, and he laughed, a cold, mirthless sound that was the same as fingernails raking down a hated lover’s skin. Percy’s toes curled in his finely made shoes, feeling the sudden urge to flee the room.

Something he would never, _ever_ do.

"Happy holidays, Percy," Tom murmured, his voice wonderfully calm then, as he downed his drink entirely, before refilling his glass again. He acted as if he were a muggle, refilling it by his own hand, instead of simply charming the glass.

Yet as Percy had learned, in the years working for Riddle, it was something he preferred to do himself, on Christmas day. The holiday, as the Minister celebrated it, would never be spoken of again, Percy never allowing himself to reflect on it when he left the office and pulled his robes closer to him still.

It was terribly chilly outside, the same as it was inside the Ministry walls.

* * *

The next year, Percy felt as if it would happen the same still.

He rose from his desk and smoothed his robes about him. There had been little to do, so he’d spent the morning sorting through the publics letters to the Minister, raising his eyebrow at few that addressed him by name, while laughing at one, that asked him to intercede on the behalf of their mother-in-law who’d run into a bit of trouble, over brewing illegal potions from her kitchen. The Aurors had intervened after the woman had served afternoon tea, and her unsuspecting neighbors had been turned into furious garden gnomes. _That_ was a matter the Minister would intercede in.

Another letter he set aside, as it was sent by a Ravenclaw who would graduate soon, from Hogwarts. They asked the Minister to consider them for an internship and had included their outstanding test scores. Percy knew there was an opening in the legal department, though he knew too, that his assistant was set for leave. “A possibility,” Percy mused.

It would have to wait until after the holiday, as he heard the clock strike at five p.m.

He'd made plans with a nice witch, one who worked in the archives and was new to the Ministry. She'd been a promising candidate when he'd handled her interview himself, as a favor to the man in charge of it, one who'd come down with a horrific case of the fits. He’d been rushed to St. Mungo’s, while Percy had solved the crisis by taking his place hiring new employees.

Audrey had pleased him with her exacting answers, and she hadn't made a joke unlike the candidate before her. He'd felt a tremble in his fingers, when she reflected on how much working inside the Ministry would mean to her, having studied the history of it, while growing up. She was an unfortunate half-blood, though she behaved better than others he had known.

Percy remembered too, the last date that he’d had, with a pureblood witch from France. She’d appreciated his education at Hogwarts, though she’d sniffed at his work beside the Minister. Disturbingly, it seemed she was a detractor of Riddle’s, and Percy had waited only to finish the first course, before leaving her there.

Seeing as he had little intention to celebrate the holidays, he’d been pleased when Audrey had accepted his tentative offer to enjoy Christmas together. Like him, Audrey had no plans for Christmas Day, and they'd decided on a quiet dinner at her flat, with plans to see a play after in Diagon Alley. His present for her weighed in his pocket, an engraved box that held a quill that never had to be sharpened and only had to be dipped into ink once. She’d borrowed quills from him often enough, in the weeks that he’d known her, that he thought it was fitting enough.

He knocked on the Minister’s door, with a familiar, paper bag in hand.

“Sir?”

The Minister had stayed in his office all day, leaving Percy without time to place the bag on his desk, a fact that made him increasingly nervous. He swallowed tautly, as muffled laughter came from behind the door. Was someone with the Minister? A…companion?

It had never happened before, yet Percy was never one to dismiss his own ideas.

Percy knew there was no one on the schedule due for a meeting with Riddle, the Ministry taking a holiday until the following week. He wasn’t the only one with Yuletide plans, Percy knowing for a fact that even the man who shined every visitor’s shoes having taken off early. He had little mind for his own overtime, though the safety of the Minister was always one of his primary concerns.

Had, Percy wondered, his guest signed the guest book?

His shoulders lowered as he heard the Minister’s call. “Come in, Percy.”

* * *

Percy blinked, taking in the scene.

There was nothing out of place, nothing celebrating the holiday season.

Aside from the girl - the familiar, maddening girl - sitting in the Minister's lap, drinking from the steaming mug she had, while the Minister did the same.

Hermione ducked her head, glancing shyly at the secretary. “Hi,” she said, her tone perfectly polite.

Relaxed curls framed her face, while she had a pretty poinsettia tucked behind her ear. She scrunched her nose as the Minister murmured something into her ear, the motion highlighting the freckles splashed across her bridge. Her robes were tailored from the same fine, dark material that the Minister wore, though her familiar was embroidered into them.

“Hello Hermione,” Percy replied, clasping his hands behind his back. He held the paper bag still, though he paused in giving it to the Minister - he hadn’t expected his ward to be with him and resisted the urge to chew on the inside of his cheek. He’d suspected the Minister was allowing his ward to Floo herself into his office, though he hadn’t dared to challenge the matter further.

He had blanched months before, when he’d received a handwritten note from the ward, noting how sorry she was for hurting her brother. The Minister hadn’t spoken to him for weeks after, penning memos to him instead. It’d taken Percy’s humble reply to Hermione, one where he said there was nothing for her to apologize for (not adding that Fred had been proud for weeks about kissing the Minister’s ward), and had asked to join S.P.E.W.

_S.P.E.W_!

When Percy had moved into his flat, the first thing he’d done was purchase a pair of house-elves, ones he was proud to keep. He’d heard from a co-worker that their father collected house-elves as other pureblooded men might collect hunting hounds, and he’d agreed with the sentiment of it. Percy thought the abuse of house-elves was distasteful, seeing no reason to raise his hand to them, though he’d never moved to forbid them from punishing themselves.

Needless to say, Percy had little reason to be a member of S.P.E.W., though he wasn’t going to deny the Minister’s broad hint about making apologies to his ward. He wasn’t that much of a fool, no matter what his sister said in her continual howlers.

The Minister had given him his badge, and his membership papers himself, forcing Percy to profusely thank him for them. “_It isn’t me you should thank_,” Tom had replied coolly, “_But Hermione_.”

Percy had written her a letter that night, accompanied by a box filled with sugar quills, and pretty chocolates from Honey Dukes. He’d received a letter later, from an arrogant owl, that pecked at his finger and tugged at his tie when he’d been slow to give it treats. He’d unrolled the letter with horror, realizing at the end that it was from _Draco Lucius Malfoy_, Hermione having shared the sweets with him.

Percy knew _exactly_ how the Malfoy heir acted, having heard enough from the twins about his arrogance, and furious outbursts as a result of their pranks. Percy pressed his lips together, irritated, as always at the relationship between the Malfoys and the Minister and his ward. It made more sense than the Minister being friendly with the Weasleys (Percy blanched at the thought of Tom visiting the Burrow) but still…

There was a sense of pride about it all, other families openly flaunting their association with the Minister. His was the only not to, besides the Ollivander’s’ who were keenly focused on their craft, instead of making connections. If Percy was the head of his family, he often thought he would teach the others to appreciate his relationship with the Minister, and the respect gleaned from it. But one visit to the Burrow was enough to remind him of how foolish his thought was - and, as it was, he had enough troubling thoughts, often taking a vial of Dreamless Sleep before bed.

So, it was then, that Percy kept still, and grasped for the right words to say.

“Sir -“

“Oh!” Hermione exclaimed, her tongue darting out to soothe her lip. “It’s too hot.”

Tom paid him little attention, as he cast a wandless spell, his ward’s drink cooled to the right temperature. Their mugs were the same, ad Tom drank slowly from his own. It was sweet on his tongue, chocolate something he rarely indulged in.

“We seem to have discovered the appeal of hot chocolate,” Tom said in amusement, glancing at his secretary, who was careful not to comment on the mustaches the Minister and his ward wore.

“_We_ have,” Hermione agreed, sipping happily from her mug.

Percy was reminded of the relationship between the twins, as the Minister and his ward seemed to move in tandem with another, heeding the other’s needs. Tom shifted, his back straight against the leather chair while keeping his arm curled about his ward’s waist. They made a pretty picture together, the sort of portrait that Percy had always avoided looking at.

It was too intimate, too serene - there was a reason why Percy had always liked classic landscapes.

Hermione paid little mind to the secretary, playing with Tom’s scarf instead, weaving the end of it about her fingers. The scarf was colored in familiar green and silver colors, though it had a distinctly unkempt look about it; as if it’d been made by hand. Hermione tugged it free from about Tom’s neck and wove about her own instead. It was an unimaginable familiarity to Percy, something he hardly remembered doing as a child to either of his parents; yet the Minister paid her little mind.

“You have a mustache, Tom,” Hermione giggled, using her finger to wipe the foam free from Tom’s face. Percy was struck, then, at her familiarity - and the warmth in the Minister’s expression, unlike any he’d seen before. He felt the weight of the bag in his hand, and knew, then, that he wouldn’t be giving it to him.

Perhaps, not ever again.

“Percy,” the Minister’s amused tone interrupted his thoughts. “You’re staring.”

Percy murmured an apology, dipping his head in apology in order to hide his flaming cheeks.

“May I take my leave, sir?”

“Yes,” the Minister agreed, more relaxed than his secretary had ever heard him. “You may. Enjoy your evening, Percy.”

“Thank you, sir,” Percy knew then, that he would be sharing the drink with Audrey if she wished. “Hermione.”

And as Percy backed from the room, he felt himself fleeing, not from the cold, but from the sheer warmth between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by Grammarly! 🦝🖤


	15. XV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's something I've dropped hints about since the beginning chapter of Curious Girl when I originally intended for it to be a one-shot, something you're going to see in this chapter...!
> 
> Please, don't worry - this story will have a happy ending. I promise.
> 
> Nor will it be *too* angst-filled. :) 
> 
> I know that many of you will have questions, and I'll try to answer them, but some may wait until after the next chapter is uploaded. I don't want to spoil too much!
> 
> I have the next chapter in mind already, though I'm not sure when I'll update - I'm thrilled to have been accepted into the Reylo Charity Anthology, and will be focusing on my submission before my break ends on the 14th! 🖤 
> 
> The anthology is an amazing collaboration between fandom authors and artists, and I'm so, so very excited to be apart of it. More details can be found here: https://reylocharityanthology.tumblr.com/
> 
> And thank you all for reading my work, and showing such wonderful support. It means the world to me - seeing all your lovely, kind messages is so uplifting and cheers me up immensely. 🖤🖤

When did her life begin, and his end?

Every book on his shelves was one that she had read, every spell she cast was one he had taught her, every ache or burst in their chest entwined around the others. He had her cord displayed in his bedroom, in the same silken case he kept his wand, while she kept something sacred of his tucked into her robes, and beneath her pillow while she slept. They were together, in a way unlike any other.

Was it any surprise, that when Hermione had found herself bleeding during the night, that she’d run to his rooms?

He’d set his work aside and slipped from his bed, dressed in his robes still as he’d just arrived from the Ministry. He’d run her a bath and combed his fingers through her curls as she quivered. “_I’m sorry, Tom_,” she’d said without looking at him, and he’d shushed her, the same as if she were a silly child. “_I didn’t know what to do_.”

A silly girl.

“_There’s nothing to apologize for, pet_.”

He'd toweled her off, as she stood in his bath and watched the tinted water swirl down the drain. He'd carried her after, as she weighed little in his arms - yet there was more there than before as if she were becoming more real.

Tom could hear Winky pacing in the hallway, as the wards kept her away. They were flimsy, frail things that he knew she would never dare break, nor any of the other house-elves. They were too obedient to.

He felt the curve of her waist, as his hand settled there.

His fingers kneaded her clammy skin through her nightgown, feeling her taut muscles respond to his touch. “There are some things magic cannot do,” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear. “Feelings it cannot imitate, words it cannot say.”

How many times had he wanted this as a child?

He’d gone nights buried beneath his sheet, with his hand stroking his cheek, as he pretended it was another’s hand, someone who saw him there. Someone who would take him away from the sullen, brick walls and rotting garden that forced his potential down, down inside him where it coiled against his insides, where it watched, and it waited.

It knew, the same as he did, that there was no other who wanted him, who needed him the same as a tick burrowed beneath their skin. He knew, the same as he knew his first name, that it was true, no matter how he wished it was a lie, the same as the stories the others whispered at night, of snakes in the garden that nipped at their toes and found their way into their pockets where they struck at their unsuspecting hands.

It was a fraught fantasy, a weakness that he reviled, and wanted all the same.

“I’m here, little bird,” he said, the words cool and filled with truth. 

And as Hermione relaxed beneath his skillful touch, he found himself glad she had the same weakness, as if it were an illness between them that they shared.

He felt her curls tickle his nose, and the sweet, tantalizing scent of her greeted him; honeysuckle, crisp parchment, and sunshine from her time spent languidly reading in the gardens. She was adored by the manor and the very land it was set on, as the gardens bloomed to her delight, and it flourished with her laughter.

And she was adored by him.

“Tom,” she said, her voice thick with something neither wanted to name.

Her hand found his, tugging it to her chest. His fingers splayed across her skin, feeling her heartbeat beneath his touch there. “It quickens when you’re near,” she whispered, and he saw the tinge of pink on her cheeks. “It’s…different than with Theo or Blaise,” she hesitated a moment, “Or Draco.”

He knew of everything that passed between them.

The owls sent, the gifts from Honey Dukes, and the questions she’d asked Theo, as Winky had informed him. He’d left deep grooves in his desk at the thought of it -

The bats he had called to roost at the manor, knowing how she’d like them, a sight he’d believed she would share with him. Silly jealousies, petty envy.

It made him burn the same, as he’d felt fire in his veins.

He’d known more, he _knew_ more than to deny her, as he would if she were another. A bird that knew of its cage was never as happy as one that believed it could stretch its wings and soar, as it wished to. 

She turned her face from the crook of his shoulder, to look up at him, with her earnest eyes.

There’d never been another who looked at him like that.

There’d never been another who understood him, as little as he allowed her in. There were things she couldn’t see, things he would never allow her to see, as his insides were as tarnished and filthy as his ward’s hands after she played in the garden.

Only he couldn’t wash the filth away, watching it swirl down the drain.

“What do you think it means?” she asked, and he forced his lips to curl upward. 

“It means you’ve had too much medicine,” he replied, though he knew, she hadn’t. He’d measured it exactly, the potions brewed by his own hand, that she needed. He hadn’t asked Snape for them, though even he could admit their talents with potions were equal. He’d made the potions she needed for when her courses came, the pain that meant so much, and so little. 

“Tom -“

His hand on her side caressed her skin still, feeling the outline of her ribs as she squirmed against him. "Please," she said as if that was enough to make him explain. "I…"

He waited, knowing how to coax the words from her lips.

“I want to know if yours is like this too,” she said, and he chuckled as she moved to listen to his chest. She would take him apart, in her own naive way, if she could.

His fingers moved to catch her chin, keeping her head up and eyes meeting his.

“No, Hermione.”

There were some things he wouldn’t have her know.

(_don’t get too close_)

“But,” her tongue darted out, tracing her bottom lip as her eyes closed. “He said it must -”

Tom chuckled coolly. “Who? Theo?”

She swallowed - her eyes met him again, a movement that little of his followers would do. Dolohov would, he knew, fearing and wanting the fire of _Crucio_, the same as Bellatrix did. Yet Hermione only wanted him, not what lay at the end of his wand.

His brave, little Gryffindor.

“The one in your diary,” she whispered, knowing, as every child knew when they’d done something naughty. “I didn’t mean to write in it -“

Only she had, as they both knew, for the draw of the diary she’d found in their library had been too much.

Too welcoming to bear, as she was invited in.

“He said -“

Her hands found his sleeve, twisting the rich fabric through her fingers.

She had nothing to fear with Tom. She knew that, as she felt her heart quiver in her chest as if it would hide from him. She wanted him to know her, as the boy in the diary had promised he would. The boy had looked so much like her Tom, as she’d told him, and he’d laughed the same as a cold winter’s breeze.

“_How amusing you are_,” he’d said, stroking her cheek with his hand while she lay with her head in his lap. “_No wonder why he likes you_.”

“_Don’t you mean ‘we’?_” she’d asked, and knew, without looking, that he was smiling.

“_I haven’t said I like you yet, Hermione_.”

The boy - Tom, but not _her_ Tom - was lonely, she knew.

Terribly lonely, terribly alone, without anyone to talk to, aside from her. It was why she kept the diary close and visited him when she could; closing her eyes and wishing she was there, beside him. He'd often greet her with an ugly twist of his lips as if he couldn't quite believe she was there, though he'd never demanded that she leave.

He'd taunt her and tease her, yet there were quiet moments between them too when he allowed her to curl against his side and he dragged his fingers through her curls. “_Wild, little kitten_,” he’d remarked, chuckling before bending her curls beneath his will. Magic burned within him as it never had another.

As it burned in her, he told her, watching as she cast a Patronus with his wand. Her otter rolled at their feet, chattering happily before vanishing as if it had never been. Learning beside him was different than when she coaxed Theo into teaching her charms that he’d learned, or Draco discussed his potions assignment. Her lessons with Tom were tangible and real, something she could hold between her hands, as if every spell cast was alive, the same as she was.

“_Oh! Tom_!” she’d cried after he summoned a fiendfyre that danced around her in the shape of a horse before it gracefully bowed to her. She’d been able to touch the flames, stroking its mane and feeling only a pleasant warmth beneath her fingertips. When the horse had vanished, she’d launched herself at Tom, hugging him tightly.

And he’d allowed her to, burying his face against her curls, without either of them saying anything. There was little need for words, as they understood each other; both of them having a never-ending hunger inside them for learning and magic. They wanted to understand the world around them, though Hermione had learned Tom knew little of the changing, outside world as she told him of what she knew.

They were times that she adored, as she watched his gaze soften, and he’d stroke her back with his hand while she leaned against his shoulder and told him of her friends, and their families. He had an endless stream of questions for her, ones that no one had asked her before.

“_Oh Hermione_,” he’d say, making her shiver at how he pronounced her name, different than how Theo or Draco, or even Blaise said it.

As if it was something he cherished.

He’d laughed when she told him how horrified Lucius had been at the start of her friendship with his son, the diary Tom remembering his schoolmates well. She asked him questions, in turn, fascinated with his memories of Hogwarts, and learning things her Tom had never told him; though she knew she couldn't ask him about them, not yet.

“_He’s afraid of me, you see_,” Tom told her, though he hadn’t explained any further. “_Afraid of us_.”

There were some things he never told her, like how he’d come to exist in the diary, or how he'd known who she was when she'd first found herself before him. "_Those aren’t things for you to know, little Hermione_.”

She never sulked for long, as he taught her something new afterward, and kept her beside him. His hand would find hers, steadying her as she used his wand, and he whispered things into her ear.

And sometimes -

Sometimes it felt as if he were reluctant to have her go.

They often read together and explored places she’d never known before. She'd been wide-eyed as he showed her the Chamber of Secrets, and shivered when his basilisk greeted them, though he’d known it wouldn’t hurt her there.

“_This is where I found my belonging_,” he’d said.

Anywhere they thought of, that they’d been before, they could see.

It was the same as a dream, only one more tangible, and real; Hermione remembering what had passed when she woke up. She only wished she could bring him things, as she’d tried once, hiding sugar quills in her robe pockets. She could only bring herself, awakening beside him with the diary in hand.

“He said he’s _you_, Tom.” She said, her voice a mere whisper as she lay against him. “A part of you, that could tell me how you felt -“

His eyes closed, as he knew of the past that had touched her, the past that no one else knew of but him. His followers knew only of his power, his grace remaining as they changed around him; aging, as he stayed the same.

There were things that he’d done, things that he could never undo, that had shown him _exactly_ how much magic could take. It was a lesson Hogwarts would never teach, Dumbledore never warning his students of how magic could tantalize and tease and devour their user the same as it would a filthy, helpless muggle.

They would never know about Horcruxes, would they?

“Oh Hermione,” Tom said, tenderness thick in his voice. “I wish you hadn’t.”

He kissed her then, as wholly and sweetly as if she were grown. He kissed her then as if she were the only one to occupy his thoughts as if she were the only one, he desired to have touch him.

He kissed her then as if he loved her.

“I do,” he said lowly. “I do like you, Hermione, more than I ever should.”

(_Would he undo the past, if he could_?)

Her hands moved to tentatively cradle his cheek, as if she wanted nothing more than to touch him, knowing that he was real. “I think,” she said, her voice trembling. “I like you too, Tom. More than I like anyone else.”

He pressed his temple to hers, aching to linger in the moment between them. “Silly girl,” he whispered, kissing the bridge of her nose - her flushed cheeks - the curve of her jaw - before he met her lips again, kissing her as if he would never let her go.

* * *

And with her eyes closed, she would never know -

(_She would never see_)

He broke their kiss, feeling her pant against his lips. “Tom,” she mewled, and he -

He whispered the words that would undo the moment between them, one that she would never know. “_Obliviate_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connect with me: https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by DiMo and Grammarly! 🦝🖤


	16. XVI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! *waves* ❤❤
> 
> Since writing Curious Girl, I've repeatedly received questions about Hermione and Tom's ages. This was a question I was uncomfortable with answering, as Curious Girl *is* a squicky dynamic. I wanted to leave their ages up to the reader, however, with how many questions I’ve received, I wanted to finally answer it. 
> 
> My headcanon for their ages are twelve/fourteen for Hermione, and thirty-four for Tom. 
> 
> Time skips aren't something I address in this fic, as the chapters are drabble like. If you're uncomfortable with Hermione's age, think of her age as whatever you'd like. I never want to make someone uncomfortable reading my work and try to tag my works accurately. 
> 
> I also saw some confusion about the last chapter, and whether Diary Tom is a Horcrux or not. Tom has created Horcruxes - Diary Tom *IS* a Horcrux (one with his own agenda...) and the family ring that Tom wears. He has the locket too, but it isn’t a Horcrux yet. 
> 
> Tom also knows how to use magic suspend time; however, it isn’t sustainable. It drains him enormously, unlike the two Horcruxes. Through suspending time, Tom is closer to fifty, though he appears (and is believed) to be thirty-four. The two Horcruxes are all that he needs to live forever, in this AU timeline. 
> 
> Tom has served as Minister for Magic for over ten years and is enormously popular - his unchanging appearance hasn’t been addressed by the public yet. I adore the fan cast of Tom Hughes as Tom Riddle, so he shares his age, and his appearance, if you need a visual! 
> 
> This chapter (one that takes place in the past) answers both questions further, as well as serving up some tomione fluff. I hope it makes things clearer! 
> 
> And as always, thank you for all the wonderful support. Your comments mean the world to me, as well as your kudos, bookmarks, and DM's on Tumblr. It's more than I ever dreamed of ❤

_Then_

* * *

“Tom! Come see!” Hermione cried, taking her guardian’s gloved hand in hers.

Tom looked down at his young ward, smirking at the snowflakes dusting her curls. “You have my attention, little one,” his tone was mockingly reverent, though it lacked his usual bite. His cruel edge was something he kept from her, few knowing how well Tom cared for his possessions.

And she was his favorite one, the little girl that she was.

It’d been twelve years since he’d adopted her from the orphanage and withstood the public outcry from the Weasley matriarch. The public had an intense curiosity to see his little dove, and he had orchestrated several public outings to see her, over the years. Tom ensured there was a distance between the public and his ward, every press release and article about them well screened. 

He trusted the pureblood families he knew well enough to respect her position, though Tom knew some, like Lucius, had issues with her blood status. He remembered his days at Hogwarts well enough, where he’d felt magic burn within his veins, yet had been treated like any common house-elf. His name wasn’t enough, his place not established from birth in the wizarding world. He knew exactly how cruel children could be, no matter the purity of the blood that ran through their veins.

It was the revelation of his heritage that raised him in the eyes of the purebloods around him, as they caved to his inheritance as the Heir of Slytherin. There was innate respect that came with it, an undeniable right for Tom to have superiority over his peers, pureblood or not.

He knew well enough how to play by their rules, having based his image, and his career on it. Oh, Tom sneered at the Malfoys claim to purity, knowing the portraits they'd burned, and the Blacks' tendency to madness. The pureblooded families had damned themselves by becoming enslaved to their rules, while half-bloods and muggle-borns reveled in their ignorance and their magic ability. They had a passion for flaunting the rules, though they found the wizarding society not quite as _accepting_ as Hogwarts was.

Hermione tugged at his sleeve, “Tom?”

He heard the impatience in her voice, something that amused him greatly. She was as greedy as a magpie when it came to his attention, reveling when she was at the center of his thoughts. If only she knew that she was _always_ in his thoughts, no matter what he was doing. She bloomed beneath his attention as she knelt on the ground, her furred cloak about her shoulders, and he crouched beside her.

"It's a Fae dragon," Hermione chirped her cheeks bright pink from the cold. It made him want to cup her cheeks in his hands and kiss the tip of her flushed nose. “See the scales? Winky helped me with the spells,” she added. Few people knew that house-elves were talented at magic, though most were limited to using domestic spells. The coterie of elves knew their young mistress needed constant amusement, something best achieved with illusions and enchantment spells.

“Pretty,” Tom murmured. The Fae dragon was carved from snow, its nostrils flaring as it exhaled tiny puffs of smoke. It glimmered in the sunlight, its scales shimmering, and tail tucked beneath its quivering chin.

“Did you name them?” Tom asked, tracing his hand over its snout. The creature blinked, its coal eyes watching him as solemnly as Snape did. He whispered a spell, snowflakes swirling away from them in a steady stream. It was a tantalizing wonderland, one that any child would have delighted in.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “I thought about calling him Draco but,” her nose wrinkled, “I already _know_ one Draco -“

Tom chuckled, the sound something that Hermione cherished. She loved his voice, often slipping into his bed at night when she couldn’t fall asleep. He rarely slept, she’d noticed, and accepted her snuggling against him. He rarely asked her why she couldn’t sleep, or if something was wrong.

It wasn’t his way.

Instead, he would cast a Lumos, and call a novel to him. He would read aloud to her, his voice lulling her to sleep, with his arm wrapped around her shoulder. Tom was the one she trusted the most, knowing he’d always caught her when she fell. She’d taken to everything early as a toddler, walking and talking months before anyone else had, Tom told her. It’d been his hand she’d held when she toddled about, and he’d taught her full sentences, never talking to her as if she were a child.

That was for Winky to do, and Hermione loved the house-elf with all her heart.

“Kilgharrah,” Tom murmured. “The name of Merlin’s dragon.”

He had read the stories of Arthur and the round table to Hermione, finding that she willingly absorbed everything he read to her. She had been fascinated with Arthur's history with Merlin and Morgana while wrinkling her nose at the story of Guinevere and Lancelot. “_Do you not care for love, Hermione_?” he’d asked her, his finger stroking the bridge of her nose. “_Most girls your age are captivated by it_.”

“_Well…they seem very silly_,” Hermione replied, tapping her finger against the engraved portrait depicting the lovers. “_You wouldn’t act like that, would you_?” she’d asked him in turn, her brow furrowing. There was a hesitation to her words as if she knew it was a dangerous topic to broach with him.

“_No_,” he’d agreed, knowing_ exactly_ how silly love could make people be. “_I wouldn’t_.”

“Kilgharrah,” Hermione repeated, her lips curving about the word. “Do you like it?” she asked the small dragon, who cocked its head and slowly blinked at her as any housecat would. “I think he does,” Hermione decided, clapping her mitten clad hands together. With its name, she’d decided its gender too.

“Are you cold?” Tom asked, brushing snow from his dove’s shoulder. He’d cast a warming charm on her cloak before she’d went out to play, but he saw how her ears were turning pink. He felt a flicker of annoyance at caring about the trivial fact, a cold chill slithering down his back.

“No,” Hermione shook her head, and his eyes narrowed.

He curled his hand beneath her chin and tilted her head up to him. “Are you sure, little one?” he asked, his lips curving upward. He would have to teach her how to lie when she was older, her expressions giving everything away. She nipped at her lip, her teeth sinking into her fleshy bottom lip.

“I want to stay with Kilgharrah,” she said, her whiskey-colored eyes meeting his.

She could be as stubborn as he was as if she truly shared his blood. His house-elves considered her as their own missus, one tentatively asking Tom when he'd brought her home if he would adopt her in truth.

“_Will Missus Hermione be your daughter, Master Riddle_? _Pipsy was wondering_…”

Tom knew the ritual well enough, ones that required a blood sacrifice, to make her truly share his bloodline. It was a ritual that every pureblooded family knew, having seen countless inheritances preserved because of it. Only he had no desire to make Hermione his daughter.

“_She is my ward_,” Tom had replied, doing nothing as the house-elf punished themselves for asking him directly. “_Nothing less, and nothing more_.”

There was a flickering light inside the girl, one that drew him like a moth to her. She was his opposite; soft and kind where he was harsh and cruel. Outside the purebloods that surrounded him, the wizarding world had little idea of the true nature of their Minister. He was coveted and adored, inspiring envy the same as he inspired fear and devotion by the masses.

If only they knew who he truly was, Tom mused. They knew nothing of the bitter history of the ring on his finger, nor the journal he had tucked away in the manor’s library. He had tangled with magic beyond what any wizard could dream of.

There was no dark nor light side of magic, Tom knew. It was endlessly grey and demanded to be used by those who could control it. It wasn’t something that Dumbledore nor any of his slaves would teach, as obsessed as they were with entwining magic and morality. The thought made Tom sneer; his perfect teeth exposed.

What hopeless fools they were.

They knew nothing of him, or the Horcruxes he’d made. Nor did they know of the locket he kept for when his poppet came of age. He shivered at the thought of guiding her through it, and how he would hold her tight against him after she fractured her soul. 

“_We’ll be together_,” he’d coo, knowing that she would be afraid. “_Forever, little one_.”

No one would separate them, not even Death itself. He’d known as soon as he set eyes on her in the orphanage that she would be his Lady, the only one that he would kneel before, just as she would perch on his lap while sharing his throne. The world would change around them, while they stayed the same, always.

She was the only one he allowed in, the only one who had a chance of understanding him. It would hardly benefit him to allow her, too, to age past him, not with the plans he had for her.

There were ties between them, their magic purring as they entangled together.

She would want for nothing, this slip of a girl, who was two decades younger than he was if one went by when he had stopped aging. The wizarding world thought of their Minister as being thirty-four, one of the younger leaders they’d had since his ascension; never knowing he was more than a decade older than that.

Living a private life had its advantages, as Tom had, before he’d become Minister. Only a handful of his knights knew of the rituals he’d partaken in, his years spent in suspended magic something no one had noticed. It was as if they had just seen him yesterday, and he’d used the advantage well, though it tired him immensely. It wasn’t as sustainable as the Horcruxes were, and he’d slowed on using the rituals since he’d adopted his ward. He’d learned to feel magic bubbling inside his veins, his fingers ever grasping to wield it.

He’d seen opportunity in Kingsley’s downfall, and with the support of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, had been able to make his ambitions come true. His rise had been electric, leaving many breathless. He had the eyes of a haunted man with the face of a young man, his handsomeness appealing to many.

He was no stranger to desire, knowing his allure.

Yet there was only one that he saw, only one that he thought of.

He had a curious desire, an ache in his chest to make her _happy_. It had taken root when he saw her in the orphanage and continued to spread when he was in her presence as if it was continually growing under her oblivious care. He’d pressed his hands against his ribcage more than once, feeling it twisting and pulsing beneath his fingers.

He could tear it free from himself if he wished.

Yet he made no move to, his breath exposed in the frigid air. 

They drew their breath in tune with another, their lungs acting the same. Tom heard whispers in his ear, teasing him to hold her close, and never let go -

_She’s yours_, the voices promised. _Yours, yours, yours._

Perhaps that was why Tom rose to his feet and tucked Hermione against his side. He knew, even if she wouldn’t admit it, that she was cold. His wool cloak radiated warmth; her content sighs not hidden from him. 

"Can Kilgharrah come with us? Inside?" Hermione asked, her voice muffled as she pressed her cheek against his chest. She heard his heartbeat through his grey jumper and counted its beats as if she wanted hers to beat the same as his. "I promise he'll behave!"

Tom tucked her curls behind her ear, "I'm sure that he would," he assured her, amusement lacing his tone. It seemed she had pitiful love when it came to any creature after their house-elves had ceased to scare her as a toddler. At the hopeful look she gave him, he made a soft clicking noise. “But do you think Kilgharrah would be happy inside? The garden is his home,” he said gently, snowflakes swirling around them. “He could come inside under stasis but -“

“He would be unhappy,” Hermione said, her eyes wide at the thought.

What a precious heart she had.

“You’ll be able to visit him here,” Tom said, as Kilgharrah slowly flapped his wings. The dragon stayed on the ground, instead, moving the air around him for warmth. “Winter will last for months yet, little one.”

Hermione glanced at her pet, before looking back to him. “Okay,” she conceded, knowing that Tom always kept his word, to her. “Winky and I could make him a friend, another dragon to keep him company.”

Earlier she'd found that Winky was easily capable of making snowballs, her hands-free from mittens. House-elves were impervious to the cold, or the heat, Winy had told her worried mistress, when Hermione had offered her fuzzy mittens. She’d never heard of any house-elf catching frostbite, unlike the humans they served.

Buttoned up as she was, Tom knew that his ward wasn’t made for the cold. She was made for the brilliance of the sun, and the warm sea nipping at her toes. He thought, then, that she would like if he took her on holiday to Corsica again, where she could read as she liked outside, and build sandcastles as high as his waist. She’d marveled at the beachside when she was younger, and he’d taken her to Corsica to celebrate her third birthday.

It had only been the two of them, besides the house-elves, he brought with. They’d had a cottage of their own, and he'd brought little work to accompany him, instead, focusing his attention entirely on his ward. He’d chuckled as Winky had chased her through the cottage, Hermione’s naked feet slapping against the marble tile.

“_Little missus needs sunscreen! Little missus will burn_!”

It’d taken Tom _Accio’ing_ the squirming toddler to him, as Winky had skidded to a stop in front of him and squeaked her apologies. He’d dismissed the elf without thought and crooned to his ward in parseltongue as he slathered her in sunscreen himself. It became his responsibility, every day of their holiday, and she’d returned with freckles splashed across her cheeks.

A sight he’d rather see, instead of her frostbitten cheeks, and snowflakes clinging to her hair. Tom thought he would run a bath for her later, and read to her from the outer door if she wished. Beside him, Hermione stomped her feet to warm them, despite the thick, wooly socks Winky had made her wear.

“Come,” Tom murmured, wrapping his arm around her waist. “Winky will prepare tea for us, poppet.”

“And crumpets?” Hermione asked, tilting her head. “With a little bit of strawberry jam?”

His lips curved into a smile. “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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